Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Viagogo GmbH (Viagogo)

Where: United Kingdom

When: 9 April 2025

Law stated as at: 4 June 2025

What happened:

The ASA has upheld a complaint against a podcast ad for Viagogo, aired on 22 April 2024 during an episode of the Political Currency podcast. The ad claimed that “over half the events listed on Viagogo had tickets selling below face value”, which was challenged for being misleading and unsubstantiated.

Viagogo defended the claim by stating that it was based on data from 2023, where 53% of UK events had at least one ticket sold below face value. Viagogo defined “face value” as the base ticket price plus a 20% increase to account for booking fees, service charges, delivery fees and other charges.

However, the ASA found that this definition did not align with consumers’ understanding of face value, which typically refers to the ticket price excluding additional fees. The ASA assessed the evidence and concluded that Viagogo’s definition of face value, which included various fees, was misleading.

Additionally, the claim implied that more than one ticket per event was sold below face value, which was not substantiated by Viagogo’s data. Therefore, the ASA ruled that the claim was misleading and breached CAP Code rules on misleading advertising and substantiation.

Why this matters:

This is the latest in a number of rulings in relation to misleading price claims from the ASA during 2025 (for example, see the Haven and Essence Vault rulings), which shows that misleading pricing is still firmly within the priority list of the ASA.

The result is that the risk level in relation to these types of claims may increase, particularly as, under the new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, the UK Competition and Markets Authority has new powers to decide if consumer laws have been breached, require compliance and impose remedies such as consumer compensation and monetary penalties of up to 10% of the total value of a business’s turnover.