£16,000 fine for ticket rip-off

A tickets agency boss who cheated West End theatregoers by selling misleading seats at a mark-up of 85per cent has been fined more than £16,000.

Polish-born Patrycja Szwarczynska, 20, made huge profits by reselling tickets for hit musicals The Lion King, Mamma Mia and The Producers.

Customers paid up to £70 each on the promise that they had seats in one part of the theatre only to arrive to discover they had a worse view of the stage.

Szwarczynska, who ran Covent Garden Tickets Ltd from a booth in the piazza, was caught after trading standards officers from Westminster City Council made tape-recorded test purchases from the kiosk. In one test, officers paid £140 for two tickets for Mamma Mia.

They were asked to sign a receipt which read "seating area: stalls/circle". When the tickets were picked up on the day of the performance, they read "seating area: dress circle".

Representing the council, James Couser told Marylebone magistrates: "If you want to engage in the reselling of tickets in this way, there are regulations about what you have to do and the information you have to give consumers.

"There are substantial profits to be made and there is substantial scope to exploit customers and mislead them."

He added: "Substantial profits, we have little doubt, are being made. The sort of mark-up we are talking about is between 75 and 86.7 per cent."

An application has been made for the ticket agency to be stripped of its licence, Mr Couser added. Szwarczynska, from Thamesmead, pleaded guilty to six offences between 16 September 2004 and 20 May last year. She was given three months to pay £6,535.80.

Covent Garden Tickets, of which she is the sole director and shareholder, has one month to pay £9,830.51.

Sue Jones, Westminster City Council's chief Trading Standards officer, said scores of complaints about such ticket traders were received every year.

She added: "We are working hard to ensure that theatregoers who come in to the West End to enjoy the best shows and entertainment in the world do not have their evening spoilt by unscrupulous traders."