RESOLVED: Claiming refund/compensation for ticket from Viagogo?

VodkaSorbet

Can anyone give me any advice about trying to claim a refund/compensation from ticketing company Viagogo?

(Also posted in Tickets forum so sorry for duplication).

Yesterday I purchased a ticket for the Barclays ATP World Tour finals at the O2, for the night session the same day.

I went through the official ticketing site (Viagogo) linked to from the ATP site itself.

I arrived to pick up the ticket at 19:00, for the match starting at 19:45, to find a queue at the ticket office, which moved so incredibly slowly that it resulted in me not getting my ticket until 20:30.

Edited to add: this is Viagogo's own ticket office just outside the O2, not the O2's own box office.

By this time I had missed all but 3 games of the first set, and I was lucky to get in that early as my seat happened to be right at the entrance.

Clearly there were other people in the same situation as me, many behind me in the queue who would have missed even more.

There was no indication on the Viagogo website of what time you need to arrive to collect your ticket, and I went straight to the box office after buying the ticket online (this took around 1.5 hours to get there and park but there was nothing to suggest this would be a problem).

The problem at the box office was not the number of people waiting to be served, but the sheer incompetence of the operation (a box room in a rented office building staffed by foreign students struggling with English with no idea what they were supposed to be doing and no computers to help!).

Viagogo have something called a 'Ticket Guarantee' on their website which states that "We guarantee that you will receive your tickets in time for the event", and there is also a statement on the order confirmation page "Please be assured that you will have the tickets on hand in time of the event", but I can't find anything more about this in their T&Cs.

I am going to try to claim something back from them on this basis, but wondered if anyone who has any experience of doing this sort of thing could advise what approach I should take.

I did take photos of the shambles of the box office and the queue!

TIA

System

Sorry to sound harsh but its your own fault if you don't give yourself enough time to collect the ticket from the box office. I don't see that you have a leg to stand on to get compensation from Viagogo

bod1467

1.5 hours wait if there are 1000s of people queuing is to be expected (maybe); but not if there are only 100s queuing.

OP - how many people were queuing (estimate) and how many ticket operators were on duty?

shaun_from_Africa

Sorry to sound harsh but its your own fault if you don't give yourself enough time to collect the ticket from the box office

I don't agree with this.
The OP purchased online then went directly to the ticket office to collect the tickets so they couldn't have arrived any earlier.
If the tickets were being sold at such short notice then surely Viagogo should have made purchasers aware that they may miss some of the event due to having to queue to collect their tickets.

I would suggest that you contact viagogo and tell them that you want to claim on their guarantee as this states that :

viagogo guarantees every transaction
Buyers are guaranteed to get the tickets they paid for in time for the event. In the rare instance that a problem arises, viagogo will provide similar or better tickets, or in the worst case a full refund

(It's their use of bold, not mine)

The only problem you may have is that by going into the venue and watching part of the match you may have screwed any chance of a refund as you accepted and used the tickets.

VodkaSorbet

goater78 wrote: »

Sorry to sound harsh but its your own fault if you don't give yourself enough time to collect the ticket from the box office. I don't see that you have a leg to stand on to get compensation from Viagogo

How much time do you think is 'enough'?

Would you allow more than 45 minutes?

The box office is supposed to shut at 20:00 anyway, so they must have expected to have served everyone by then.

Plus, one of the staff told us we were entitled to compensation and gave us her name and mobile number (I don't think this is the route to go though!).

VodkaSorbet

bod1467 wrote: »

1.5 hours wait if there are 1000s of people queuing is to be expected (maybe); but not if there are only 100s queuing.

OP - how many people were queuing (estimate) and how many ticket operators were on duty?

I would guess there were around 50 people in front of me, and a similar number behind (I could get a better idea from the photos but don't have them with me now).

It was taking up to 5 minutes between each person getting out of the q with their tickets.

I saw 5 staff in the room.

Slowhand

VodkaSorbet wrote: »

I would guess there were around 50 people in front of me, and a similar number behind (I could get a better idea from the photos but don't have them with me now).

It was taking literally 5 minutes between each person getting out of the q with their tickets.

I saw 5 staff in the room.

5 staff should clear 50 people in 50 minutes then?

VodkaSorbet

Slowhand wrote: »

5 staff should clear 50 people in 50 minutes then?

yeah, I guess my maths is not too good!

Maybe there were more people than that (but it wasn't hundreds) and some of the transactions were slower.

Anyway, the point was the complete incompetence of the system and staff. I would accept it if they were motoring through the q and it was just really long, then yes it would be my fault for not allowing enough time. It was the fact that it was just a total shambles.

System

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

I don't agree with this.
The OP purchased online then went directly to the ticket office to collect the tickets so they couldn't have arrived any earlier.
If the tickets were being sold at such short notice then surely Viagogo should have made purchasers aware that they may miss some of the event due to having to queue to collect their tickets.

I would suggest that you contact viagogo and tell them that you want to claim on their guarantee as this states that :
(It's their use of bold, not mine)

The only problem you may have is that by going into the venue and watching part of the match you may have screwed any chance of a refund as you accepted and used the tickets.

It doesn't matter if you agree or not. They won't give him any money back. The tickets were bought online at 5:30pm and were available to be collected at the box office. It is the OP's fault that he couldn't get to the box office until 7pm.

I do not believe that 45 minutes is giving yourself enough time to collect tickets from a box office.

The terms and conditions were met by Vidagogo as the tickets were available for the Op to collect before the start of the event. It is not their fault that he did not leave enough time to collect his tickets

System

VodkaSorbet wrote: »

How much time do you think is 'enough'?

Would you allow more than 45 minutes?

The box office is supposed to shut at 20:00 anyway, so they must have expected to have served everyone by then.

Plus, one of the staff told us we were entitled to compensation and gave us her name and mobile number (I don't think this is the route to go though!).

That would be your best route, any compensation would come from the official ticket office not from Viagogo as they fulfilled their side of the bargain.

When I collect tickets at football matches I always give myself at least a good hour. Big events lead to big queues at the box office

shaun_from_Africa

5 staff should clear 50 people in 50 minutes then?

"Should" being the important word.

I went into WH Smith at Gatwick South terminal yesterday morning and there were only 4 people in front of me in the queue so I only expected to have to wait a short while.
After standing for 10 minutes with only 2 of the 4 people having been served, I left my items by the till and walked out as I had a taxi arriving shortly.

The person serving did not appear to have any idea of how to use the till correctly as whilst I was there they made 3 separate mistakes, all of which required them calling for a supervisor to sort it out.
These mistakes could well have been due to the assistant who seemed more interested in sending texts on their mobile whilst trying to serve at the same time.