CTS Eventim’s fees on print-at-home tickets have been ruled as unlawful by the district court of Bremen, Germany, causing its share price to take a dive yesterday (Thursday).
The ticketing firm charges customers €2.50 ($2.90/£2.30) for printing their own tickets. The court ruled the service charges to be “inadmissible” and said Eventim may only charge additional costs on tickets that require postage.
However, the company was quick to reassure markets and investors in a statement claiming the ruling would have “limited financial implications” to Eventim.
The firm highlights that “this fee is charged on a per-order basis, not per ticket.” It also claims that the Federal Court of Justice said that an adjustment to that fee may be acceptable and that the fees in question are a small percentage of its revenue.
Eventim said in the statement: “The ticket orders addressed by the judgment only account for approximately five per cent of the total number handled by eventim.de.
“In total, they represent sales revenue of around one million Euro – and therefore a mere thousandth of Group revenue.”
However, an industry source told TheTicketingBusiness: “Although Eventim has been quick to highlight the ‘limited financial implications’ of the ruling – stating that the ruling affects ticket orders which represented €1m in sales which is ‘a mere thousandth of Group revenue’ – there are wider implications.
“This is a victory for the consumer group North Rhine-Westphalian Consumer Association (Verbraucherzentrale NRW) – with a ruling which will likely affect all other ticketing companies which charge customers an ‘over the top’ fee for print at home option.”
Verbraucherzentrale NRW filed the lawsuit against Eventim and said the case opens the door for legal action against six other online ticket agencies, such as ADticket, Ticketmaster, ReserviX, easyticket, BonnTicket and D-Ticket, which it has “warned” against charging similar fees.
The source continued: “It’s clear that where ticketing companies charge for third-party or add-on services, the fees must be in proportion to the costs of the service. Overcharging for print-at-home – or courier delivery, as was the case in a class action against Ticketmaster in the USA over UPS shipments in 2014 – will be deemed “unfair” by the authorities.”
Image: pxhere
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