Finland's Consumer Ombudsman is taking ticket seller Lippupiste Oy to the Market Court, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (KKV) said. The ombudsman wants the court to prohibit Lippupiste from marketing event admission tickets with a starting price that does not include the order fee added to the price, according to Yle.
KKV says Lippupiste has not announced the total price of event tickets in the way required by the Consumer Protection Act. Lippupiste acts as a ticket intermediary and markets and sells admission tickets for cultural, entertainment, and sports events.
Lippupiste adds service and order fees to the ticket's base price, and these are part of the ticket's total price. According to KKV, Lippupiste has left out of the starting price on its website the mandatory order fee paid by the consumer, which is 1.50 euros and 0.65 percent of the order value. Information about the order fee added to the starting price is given only later in the purchase process.
“Mandatory additional charges cannot be revealed only at the payment stage,” Consumer Ombudsman Katri Väänänen said in the release. Negotiations between the ombudsman and Lippupiste did not reach a solution, and Lippupiste did not agree to change its practices for announcing the total price. The ombudsman is seeking a 100,000-euro conditional fine to enforce the ban.
Who is affected
- kuluttajat: Consumers are told about the mandatory order fee added to the starting price only later in the purchase process.