Festival season is well and truly upon us. Most people will go online to buy tickets to all sorts of events from food festivals to your favourite musician. Unfortunately there are a lot of websites that are not genuine ticket sellers. There are some ticketing scams which pretend to supply online tickets for popular events. These sites will take your money but not give you a ticket. You can get tickets from a Box Office in person but this is not always available or practical if the event is not local to you. Therefore buying online may be your only option if you want to attend an event.

To find out if a website is genuine:

• Look at the type of tickets sold – be suspicious if they are for events that have already sold out or haven’t officially gone on sale. You can often find out when tickets go on sale from press, radio or TV promotions
• Look at feedback about the website or company – enter its name into a search engine to see if there are comments from buyers about whether they have received tickets
• Check contact details for the website – there should be a landline phone number and a full postal address. Avoid using the site if there is only a PO box address and mobile phone number, as it could be difficult to get in touch after you buy tickets. These addresses and phone numbers are easy to change and difficult to trace
• Use a site that has a red, black and white kitemark provided by the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR), the self-regulatory body for the entertainment ticket industry. You can find a full list of STAR’S members on their website.
• Check the event or venue website to find out who the official ticket sellers are, and use them.

What to do if you have bought a ticket from an illegal ticketing website:

If you think you’ve bought a ticket from a scam website, you should report it to the police.   You can also report it via the action fraud website, at www.actionfraud.police.uk. It is unlikely that you will get your money back, but you can try and prevent this site being used by others.

You can also contact the professional associations for ticket sellers, so they are aware and can prevent this happening again.

If you paid for the ticket by credit card, the credit card company may be jointly responsible if the ticket seller breaks their contract with you. As long as the ticket cost over £100, you may be able to claim your money back from the credit card company.

If you paid by a Visa or Mastercard debit card, you may be able to ask for a refund under their chargeback scheme. You will need to contact the card company to make a claim.

If you can’t get your money back any other way, you could try making a claim through the courts. It might be possible to claim for your money back for the ticket costs as well as loss of enjoyment. However, bear in mind that it may be difficult to trace the seller. You will need an address for the owners of the site that sold you the ticket to take them to court

More about taking someone to court

Next Steps

Contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline (formerly known as Consumer Direct) if you need more help with a consumer problem.

Citizens Advice consumer helpline: 03454 04 05 06
Textphone: 18001 03454 04 05 06
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
Closed on bank holidays

An adviser will answer your call as soon as possible, usually within a few minutes. Once you’re speaking to an adviser your call should take an average of 8 to 10 minutes.

Alternatively for help with this or other matters, please contact Citizens Advice Bracknell and District via Advice line South on 03444 111 306 or pop in and see us