HONG KONG (CelebrityAccess) The Consumer Council of Hong Kong reportedly recently warned the region’s ticket buyers to avoid secondary ticketing sites.
The council said the sites are price-gouging consumers for purchases not covered under consumer protection laws, IQ magazine reported Oct. 18. Secondary ticketing has limited traction in Hong Kong, according to IQ, but Viagogo and StubHub spend “significant” capital on Google ads. The council is reportedly critical of the lack of customer service of secondary ticketers as well as their use of high-pressure sales tactics such as messages like “less than 1% tickets left available” and “4 people have just bought tickets for this event,” IQ said.
“Such aggressive sales tactic [sic] was most evidently deployed by one of the platforms which sprinkled throughout the entire booking process with such messages,” the authority reportedly said. “This sort of practice has led to a public controversy in Australia where the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission decided to take prosecution against the operators of related platforms in a court action last year, pointing out that such sales tactics are tantamount to false and misleading trade practices. The court case is still underway.”
Secondary ticketing is a “legal grey area” in Hong Kong, as a “special administrative region” of China, according to IQ.
