eBilet fined. He must pay PLN 1.3 million and return the money to his clients

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection announced the issuance of two separate decisions regarding the practices of the eBilet company selling tickets for cultural and sports events. The company will have to, among other things: pay a fine of over PLN 1.3 million.

They added a service fee to the ticket. “This method misled customers”

In the first case, the office had reservations about the way eBilet presented the final ticket price. , customers were shown minimum prices, to which a mandatory service fee then had to be added. In practice, when finalizing the purchase, the price (plus the fee) was already higher.

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection also gives an example. Tickets for one of the events were sold at a minimum price of PLN 135. However, an attempt to buy these tickets resulted in an additional service fee and the amount of PLN 141.75. “This method of price presentation was misleading to customers, because it was not possible to purchase a ticket at the given minimum price,” explains the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection.

The Office ordered eBilet to change the method of informing about ticket prices. After the changes, ticket prices displayed on the company’s website must include both the price of the ticket itself, as well as the service fee and any other mandatory fees. The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection believes that the customer should have the opportunity to learn about the final price of the service from the beginning of the purchase process, because it is one of the most important factors influencing the purchase decision.

This practice (called drip pricing) takes up the consumer’s time (he must withdraw from the purchase at the stage of finalizing it) or may mislead him by charging a higher amount than he initially planned to spend on the ticket. The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection also ordered eBilet to positively consider all complaints regarding incorrect collection of the service fee and to refund this amount to customers who filed complaints.

Huge penalty for eBilet. “Unauthorized use of provisions of the Anti-Covid Act”

In a separate decision, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection imposed a fine of PLN 1,325,880 on eBilet for groundlessly invoking the provisions of the Anti-Covid Act in contact with customers. The company informed that it had 180 days to refund the money for the purchase of a ticket for an event that was canceled. She explained that this time had been extended from 14 days by the applicable special law. In some cases, customers had to wait for their money even longer than the 180 days promised by eBilet.

Meanwhile – as the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection writes – the Anti-Covid Act did not apply to ticket sales and eBilet had no right to use its provisions. Thus, the company had 14 days to return the amounts paid by customers. “Consumers received false information about the eBilet company being covered by the special act and the extension of the ticket return deadline to 180 days by e-mail,” explains the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection.