Viagogo and Stubhub: do you know who you’re really buying from?

Buying tickets for popular events has become increasingly difficult for UK consumers, with general sales selling out in a matter of minutes.

But take a look on Viagogo and Stubhub – two unofficial resale sites – and you’ll find an abundance of tickets for even the most sought-after events.

Resellers on these platforms have been known to list batches of tickets at inflated prices – often minutes after presales have taken place.

Following a number of Which? investigations into these platforms - and a joint statement signed by Coldplay, Dua Lipa, Sam Fender and many other artists - the government has announced a ban on the resale of tickets above face value.

Which? welcomes the commitment to introduce a price cap, but we will still be keeping a close eye to ensure that ticket sites don't leave fans feeling ripped off.

Here, we take a look at who the touts are on these platforms, how they get hold of so many tickets, and why the government must overhaul how resale sites operate.

Overseas resellers are prolific

Which? looked at the traders listing tickets on these platforms for some of the most popular UK music and sports events.

Many of the traders were based outside of the UK, suggesting there are global operations exploiting the UK’s broken ticket industry.

Some of these traders – based in Alicante, Singapore, São Paulo, Dubai and Delaware – had prolific listings on either Viagogo or Stubhub (or both), often selling multiple sets of tickets for popular events.

Eventual tickets, based in Alicante, had multiple listings on Stubhub for events such as Oasis, Coldplay, Kane Brown, Katy Perry, Five, Post Malone and an All Points East day festival with Raye headlining.

Ticket Delivery LLC, based in Delaware, similarly often had multiple listings on either Viagogo or Stubhub for Coldplay, Post Malone, Arijit Singh, Oasis, Five, Katy Perry and All Points East events, as well as a Minnesota Vikings at Cleveland Browns NFL game.

On Viagogo, Which? found traders from Bucharest, Vietnam, China, Dubai, the USA, Israel, Hong Kong, Austria and the Netherlands selling tickets for a Lady Gaga London date. For the women’s rugby world cup final, the traders on Stubhub were based in Russia and Malta.

Unsurprisingly, these tickets were often listed for well above face value price. We found an All Points East ticket listed for £114,666 (Viagogo), a seat at the Minnesota Vikings vs Cleveland Brown NFL game listed at £3,568.39 (Stubhub), a women’s rugby final ticket costing £596 (Viagogo), a Post Malone ticket for £726.39 (Stubhub), and a Coldplay ticket listed at £814.52 (Stubhub).

Oasis tickets were listed for as much as £3,498.85 on Stubhub and £4,442 on Viagogo.

• Find out more: tickets for popular music and sports events listed for inflated prices on Viagogo and Stubhub

Who are these traders?

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) secured a court order in 2018 requiring Viagogo to outline the identity of traders.

Trader names and addresses are easier to find on Stubhub. But on Viagogo, this information is buried in T&Cs-style small print on the final checkout page. Click on the ‘trader information’ link if you do manage to spot it, and you have to go through a captcha form to actually see the trader’s address.

But even when you have the trader’s information, it’s still not always clear who you’re buying from, or whether the trader's name and address are genuine. Often, when you search the name of the trader, it’s difficult to find any further details about who they are or how to contact them.

‘It’s very difficult to find out who the traders are,’ Adam Webb, campaign manager at FanFair Alliance, a group that campaigns against profiteering in the secondary ticket market, told us.

 ‘Some of the younger generation have moved on from selling trainers and games consoles into ticket sales because it looks like an easy resale business,’ Adam explained. ‘They’re probably into crypto, drop shipping, affiliate marketing; they kind of want to get something for nothing.'

• Read more: how to get a refund from a ticket seller

Speculative listings and ticket bots

The CMA’s court order also restricts speculative selling, which is where people list tickets on resale sites that they haven’t yet bought and that are still available via the primary ticket website.

But we found evidence of speculative listings on both Viagogo and Stubhub. For a Busted vs McFly show in Glasgow in November, we found seats 134-139, row Z, section 328, listed on Viagogo by a Ukrainian seller for £750. But when we looked on Ticketmaster, these exact seats were still available at a fraction of the price, at £386.90.

Similarly, seats 133-138, row JJ, section 328, were listed on Stubhub for £635.68 despite the fact they were still available to buy from Ticketmaster for £386.90. This Stubhub seller was based in Atlanta, USA.

For more popular, sell-out shows, speculative listing is likely less common. For these shows, touts might instead use bots to quickly buy up tickets.

‘Tickets now sell out in minutes. Most of that activity is bots that will have 100 different accounts booking five or six tickets at a time,’ Steve Goddard from Featurespace told us, ‘the tickets are gone within minutes and moved over to reseller sites. It leaves a lot of genuine fans frustrated.’

He told us how this type of fraud is offered as an end-to-end service. ‘These people [selling the ticket bot code] are competing against other criminals. They want people to return to them for their service.

‘We’ve seen this with compromised [bank] cards: if you buy 300 compromised cards and 25% of them don’t work, you can go back and they’ll offer you a refund or give you some vouchers or something. It’s all about customer service – they want ongoing customers to keep coming back. The customer service is scarily good, unfortunately.’

What did Viagogo and Stubhub say?

Viagogo told us most of its sellers use its platform to sell a few tickets they can no longer use.

It said, as of September 2025, nearly 30% of events in the UK for 2025 had an average ticket price under £50 on Viagogo, and 84% had an average ticket price under £100. For Oasis, the average ticket price two weeks before their first show in Cardiff was £255. It told us that the highest prices on its platform, by default, have not sold.

Viagogo said it's fully compliant with the CMA's regulations, including providing professional sellers' information. Any sellers found to be in breach of regulations will face consequences including penalties and platform removal. It disagrees with the suggestion that traders have fictitious identities.

Viagogo said it prohibits and will remove speculative listings from its platform. Sellers found to be in breach of its policy will be permanently suspended from using its platform. It says transparency is its priority and rejects any suggestion that it misleads users. Its website discloses that it’s the largest secondary marketplace for tickets to live events.

Viagogo said it strongly opposes the use of illegal bots to buy tickets from primary sellers. It prohibits sellers from listing tickets that have been purchased illegally, including through bots.

Stubhub International told us it is committed to providing fans with a safe, trusted and transparent marketplace to buy and sell tickets, and is fully compliant with UK regulations.

It said speculative listings are not allowed and will be removed from its platform. It has since removed the McFly vs Busted speculative listing we included in our article.

It states it does not condone the use of bots and says more enforcement is necessary. It offers a 100% money-back guarantee and human-led customer service.

 The government announces resale price cap

The government has announced a ban on the resale of tickets above face value.

Consumer Protection Minister Kate Dearden said: 'When fans are shut out from their favourite acts and entertainers, only one group benefits – the rip off touts. Which is why we’ve taken decisive action today that will destroy their operating model, save money for fans and make tickets cheaper.

'I know Which? have long campaigned on this issue through their Stop Fleecing Fans campaign and have worked closely with us on this too, and we will look to legislate as soon as possible – so that we can say goodbye to rip off touts once and for all.'

This comes a week after dozens of artists - including Coldplay, Dua Lipa, Sam Fender and The Cure's Robert Smith – signed a joint statement, along with Which?, FanFair Alliance, the Football Supporters' Association and organisations representing the music and theatre industries, venues, managers and ticket retailers.

Which? welcomes the commitment to introduce a price cap, but we're still concerned that these platforms could be ripping fans off by using other sneaky pricing practices.

The Competition and Markets Authority recently launched an investigation into eight businesses - including Viagogo and Stubhub - to review whether mandatory additional charges are included in the upfront price, as they should be under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act.

We're urging the government to introduce the resale price cap swiftly - and we'll be keeping a close eye on ticketing sites to ensure fans aren't getting a bad deal.

This article was originally published on 13 November and updated on 19 November following the news that the government has announced a price cap on resale tickets.