Protecting consumer rights: 'dynamic pricing' must not enrich the few

Imagine queuing online to buy a ticket to see your favourite band, and after several hours of waiting, you realise the ticket price has tripled.

This is what happened to Oasis fans in 2024.

Ten million fans in 158 countries queued for hours on the Ticketmaster website, only to discover that the prices had jumped from €160 to €400 at the final checkout, without any proper explanation or reasoning.

Recently, the same happened in Spain with concert tickets for Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny.

In both cases, UK and Spanish public institutions accused Ticketmaster of inflating the prices, which were not clearly disclosed until the very last stage of the purchasing process. This situation leaves consumers vulnerable, leading them to buy tickets at a price that they might not have accepted had they known it in advance.

This is called dynamic pricing, and it does not only happen with concerts and festivals. Many of us might be familiar with this practice when buying flight tickets, ordering a taxi via apps like Uber or Cabify, purchasing tickets for a football game, or buying goods on e-commerce platforms.

This practice only benefits large companies, to the detriment of consumer rights.

For instance, in the cultural sector, giants like Live Nation and Ticketmaster control 70 percent of online ticket sales and the concert venue market. This enables exaggerated price hikes for concerts and highlights the defenceless position of consumers.

On top of this, these large companies take advantage of consumers’ vulnerability, especially when they are in emergency situations and with limited or no access to other alternatives. This is what happened in Spain during the blackout last April.

Companies such as Cabify, Uber and Bolt took advantage of the fact that millions of people were left without electricity, telephone, or transportation to increase their prices by more than 300 percent in cities like Barcelona.

What’s even more, a recent study by academics at the University of Oxford found that many Uber drivers in the UK are earning less per hour since the app introduced dynamic pricing a couple of years ago. This proves that dynamic pricing also damages working conditions, ultimately serving to line the pockets of a privileged few.

The European Commission was clear in the past: dynamic pricing is not an illegal practice.

But at the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament, we believe that dynamic pricing can be a smokescreen for exploitative pricing models, which go against consumers’ rights.

We will not leave our consumers alone to face this abusive practice. Therefore, we are calling on the commission to present legislation to address this problem and protect consumers, particularly with the upcoming Digital Fairness Act.

Consumers’ rights come first

We must send a clear signal to our consumers, assuring them that we are not leaving them behind or placing them in the hands of large corporations.

Ticket prices are often not publicly disclosed in advance, leaving consumers unaware of the costs they will really have to bear.

This is why, in the frame of enhancing transparency on dynamic pricing (which automatically adjusts prices in real-time according to the demand), more investigation on these practices is needed; and this should be a priority for the commission.

Consumers need to be informed, from the very beginning of their purchases, when dynamic pricing is being used and what to expect regarding the prices (price fluctuation, number of tickets).

It is outrageous that they only find out during or, even worse, at the end of the transaction. Moreover, we are also determined to fight to limit the price increases by setting a maximum allowable percentage.

Our consumers cannot be left at the mercy of large multinationals: dynamic pricing is not about high demand; it is a scam.

This year, we turn 25 and are looking for 2,500 new supporting members to take their stake in EU democracy. A functioning EU relies on a well-informed public – you.