It’s past time to turn off drip pricing for bookings

FACED with being dragged off to the Federal Court, Ticketek has finally got around to complying with consumer laws that ban “drip pricing”.

Patrick Nicholls is concerned about the cost of online booking fees attached to ticket sales.

FACED with being dragged off to the Federal Court, Ticketek has finally got around to complying with consumer laws that ban “drip pricing”.

But the fees it and rivals charge are still unjustifiably high, in my view.

Last November, this column revealed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission had launched a crackdown against drip pricing, which it defines as being “where a headline price is ­advertised at the beginning of an online purchasing process and additional fees and charges which may be unavoidable are then incrementally disclosed, or ‘dripped’.

“This can result in paying a higher price than the advertised price or spending more than you realise,” we wrote.

That article nominated airlines as the worst culprits. But it also pointed out Tick-etek was failing to warn customers about unavoidable delivery costs.

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In 2013-14, Nine Entertainment-owned Ticketek sold a ticket for every adult Australian — nearly 16 million, up 7 per cent on a year earlier — generating revenue of about $137 million.

The ACCC took airlines Jetstar and Virgin Australia to the Federal Court in June, alleging “misleading or ­deceptive conduct” or “false or misleading representations”. The ACCC also signalled the likelihood of further proceedings against players in other sectors.

But in an attempt to avoid a lawyers’ field day, an ACCC spokesman told Public ­Defender it had since ­“engaged with participants in other ­industries, including ticketing” leading to “some adjustment in practices”.

That’s welcome. At least people know about Ticketek’s unavoidable delivery costs from the get-go. Now they’re merely unjustifiable.

No wonder many consumers like Patrick Nicholls are mad about the scale of ticketing agents’ add-on charges.

If you want to go to the One Direction concert at Moore Park in February, the cheapest ticket is $99.90.

Then there’s a minimum payment processing fee of $1.95. That’s much more than Ticketek would be paying to card companies — and therefore more than it should be charging, because the ­Reserve Bank has said consumers should only be hit with the “reasonable cost” of card acceptance.

Then there’s another $5.25 for “service and delivery”.

Yet the unusual thing about the delivery charge is that it doesn’t actually ­include delivery. If you want the ticket sent to you by regular mail, add on another $2.15 (and even more for other concerts).

So you’re now up for $109.25, or 9.4 per cent on top of the advertised price of the actual ticket. Even without mailing it’s 7.2 per cent.

All these charges are ­excessive, in my opinion, and unfair on fans already forking out small fortunes for tickets.

ADDING TO THE COST OF CONCERT TICKET

NINE has another, lesser-known ticketing operation called Eventopia. Reader Patrick Nicholls contacted Public Defender about Eventopia after paying what he described as an “outrageous” $9.85 “service” fee on a weekend pass to the upcoming Soundwave festival for his daughter. This added 5.2 per cent to the ticket cost of $188, including 2 per cent for paying with a card. Regular post was another $3.95. For other tickets the service fee can be as much as 9 per cent.

“This is just a dirty little grab for money,” Mr Nicholls said.