A leading figure in the Australian music industry is pleading with the government to shut down illegitimate ticket resale sites like Viagogo.

The Swiss-based company uses computer bots to buy up huge amounts of tickets to concerts and sporting events and then re-sells them at incredibly inflated prices.

There have been many cases of Viagogo-sourced seats being sold twice and others that have been cancelled before the event, leaving customers hundreds of dollars out of pocket.

Many unsuspecting people mistake Viagogo for the official ticket seller because the site has paid to appear at the top of Google searches.

The site has been banned from using Google to advertise in the UK, after it broke advertising standards.

Frontier Touring’s Michael Gudinski tells John Stanley action needs to be taken at a federal level.

“Once it’s taken off Google it’ll go away. It’s gone away in England after it’s gone to the House of Commons.”

“They [Australian government] could totally do that.

“Google is such a huge business… but they obviously don’t like being told what to do.

“But they need to be told clearly what to do. It is totally illegitimate. You’ve got me revved up!”

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