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Good, Viagogo is a horrible company and has been scaming people in Switzerland as well as all over the world. Also not the first time they lost in court.[1] Bas

Good, Viagogo is a horrible company and has been scaming people in Switzerland as well as all over the world. Also not the first time they lost in court.[1] Basically the Uber of ticket sales, move fast, break laws, make an exit and walk away millionaires. This crap needs to stop. Viagogo purchases tickets with fake names and addresses to then resells them for a much higher price. This is illegal in Switzerland and probably also in many European countries. [1] https://www.srf.ch/news/panorama/eintrittskarten-zurueckbezahlt-ticketboerse-viagogo-in-die-knie-gezwungen https://www.srf.ch/news/panorama/eintrittskarten-zurueckbeza... (German)

psytrx 4y ago
> and has been scaming people in Switzerland Same here. We issued a restraint order against Viagogo years ago, but still receive >30% 'automated traffic' during high demand pre-sales, according to Cloudflare. Even though we put lots and lots of resources into making it as difficult as possible for black markets, it still seems to be a quick and easy way to make some cash.
- superzamp 4y ago
  You piqued my interest and now would love to know more, are you selling ticket yourself for your own events and acting as a ticket selling platform for others? It's sad to see you have such a big amount of automated traffic, no wonder why it's so hard to get tickets for high demand events as a human when you're competing with this.
  - psytrx 4y ago
    Can't go into much detail, sorry. But yes, we sell our own events as well as events for other organizers. It's ironic that we only found out about the scale of automated traffic after moving to CF. Before, we were just fire fighting the load during peaks, while thinking our infra is the problem.
mhuffman 4y ago
>Viagogo is a horrible company and has been scaming people in Switzerland as well as all over the world. I went to a very well-known university (in the US), and they had business courses that literally invited speakers in that had startups that were ticket arbitrage. I was taken aback that they would be bragging about buying out all the tickets for an event and then charging more for them. Their response is something along the lines of "well first we are getting the 'real WTP' price from the consumer and second we sometimes buyout events that turn out bad and lose money, so it's fair!" But the whole time it was discussed by professors as if this was a great idea!
- spookie 4y ago
  Things like this just make me loose all respect for yhese degrees...
  - quantum_magpie 4y ago
    Business degrees were about exploiting others since their inception, so they never had any basis for respect whatsoever.
    - mhuffman 4y ago
      What's more is that for any business degree at my uni, a "Business Ethics" course is required and at upper-levels an "Ethics and Compliance" course is required. However it is focused much more on not ripping off investors or being unintentionally racist or misogynist, and has no focus on, for example, charging a profit-maximizing price for insulin or arbitraging food from poor people, etc.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  "second we sometimes buyout events that turn out bad and lose money, so it's fair!" Interesting, I always wondered why places seem to allow this. I guess this is almost like insurance for the event.
  - 4y ago
pan69 4y ago
> Viagogo purchases tickets with fake names and addresses to then resells them for a much higher price. Like corporations buying up all the realestate. Its all just part of an anti-pattern fulled by greed and the lack of laws that weren't put in place due to lobbying. Our Western idea of democracy and capitalism is fucked.
imglorp 4y ago
In most countries, this would stop if we started holding C suite personally accountable for criminal actions of their company. If they make the big bucks breaking laws, they should be doing jail time.
- consp 4y ago
  Then you'd have to get rid of limited liability companies, I don't want to be defeatist but that's not going to happen. There are some instances where it can be done but usually it's hard and I've never seen it happen with big companies, only obvious frauds like pyramid schemes.
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    I thought limited liability was about money, not about jail time. They're about insulating the owner from debt. The LLC can go bankrupt without ruining the owner.
    - consp 4y ago
      To my knowledge it also shields you from most criminal parts as you can say "It was the lower downs, not my doing" despite it almost always is policy.
      - pkroll 4y ago
        Having the employees is what provides the shield: it becomes harder to prove who exactly, did what.
  - quantum_magpie 4y ago
    If LLC owner is breaking laws they should be punished, up to, and including, jail time.
    - Silverback_VII 4y ago
      I would understand your anger if it were about speculation on the price of rice or wheat. but about tickets? come on... Even in the case of food shortage one must ask if speculation does not increase investment and production in the long run.
Silverback_VII 4y ago
Is this the fault of viagogo if some people a willing to pay almost any price? I guess most organiser are angry only because they sold their tickets at too low of a price.

psytrx 4y ago

> and has been scaming people in Switzerland Same here. We issued a restraint order against Viagogo years ago, but still receive >30% 'automated traffic' during high demand pre-sales, according to Cloudflare. Even though we put lots and lots of resources into making it as difficult as possible for black markets, it still seems to be a quick and easy way to make some cash.

superzamp 4y ago
You piqued my interest and now would love to know more, are you selling ticket yourself for your own events and acting as a ticket selling platform for others? It's sad to see you have such a big amount of automated traffic, no wonder why it's so hard to get tickets for high demand events as a human when you're competing with this.
- psytrx 4y ago
  Can't go into much detail, sorry. But yes, we sell our own events as well as events for other organizers. It's ironic that we only found out about the scale of automated traffic after moving to CF. Before, we were just fire fighting the load during peaks, while thinking our infra is the problem.

mhuffman 4y ago

>Viagogo is a horrible company and has been scaming people in Switzerland as well as all over the world. I went to a very well-known university (in the US), and they had business courses that literally invited speakers in that had startups that were ticket arbitrage. I was taken aback that they would be bragging about buying out all the tickets for an event and then charging more for them. Their response is something along the lines of "well first we are getting the 'real WTP' price from the consumer and second we sometimes buyout events that turn out bad and lose money, so it's fair!" But the whole time it was discussed by professors as if this was a great idea!

spookie 4y ago
Things like this just make me loose all respect for yhese degrees...
- quantum_magpie 4y ago
  Business degrees were about exploiting others since their inception, so they never had any basis for respect whatsoever.
  - mhuffman 4y ago
    What's more is that for any business degree at my uni, a "Business Ethics" course is required and at upper-levels an "Ethics and Compliance" course is required. However it is focused much more on not ripping off investors or being unintentionally racist or misogynist, and has no focus on, for example, charging a profit-maximizing price for insulin or arbitraging food from poor people, etc.
thatguy0900 4y ago
"second we sometimes buyout events that turn out bad and lose money, so it's fair!" Interesting, I always wondered why places seem to allow this. I guess this is almost like insurance for the event.
- 4y ago

pan69 4y ago

> Viagogo purchases tickets with fake names and addresses to then resells them for a much higher price. Like corporations buying up all the realestate. Its all just part of an anti-pattern fulled by greed and the lack of laws that weren't put in place due to lobbying. Our Western idea of democracy and capitalism is fucked.

imglorp 4y ago

In most countries, this would stop if we started holding C suite personally accountable for criminal actions of their company. If they make the big bucks breaking laws, they should be doing jail time.

consp 4y ago
Then you'd have to get rid of limited liability companies, I don't want to be defeatist but that's not going to happen. There are some instances where it can be done but usually it's hard and I've never seen it happen with big companies, only obvious frauds like pyramid schemes.
- Thorrez 4y ago
  I thought limited liability was about money, not about jail time. They're about insulating the owner from debt. The LLC can go bankrupt without ruining the owner.
  - consp 4y ago
    To my knowledge it also shields you from most criminal parts as you can say "It was the lower downs, not my doing" despite it almost always is policy.
    - pkroll 4y ago
      Having the employees is what provides the shield: it becomes harder to prove who exactly, did what.
- quantum_magpie 4y ago
  If LLC owner is breaking laws they should be punished, up to, and including, jail time.
  - Silverback_VII 4y ago
    I would understand your anger if it were about speculation on the price of rice or wheat. but about tickets? come on... Even in the case of food shortage one must ask if speculation does not increase investment and production in the long run.

Silverback_VII 4y ago

Is this the fault of viagogo if some people a willing to pay almost any price? I guess most organiser are angry only because they sold their tickets at too low of a price.