Some of the world’s biggest stars play in Scotland this week – including Kasabian, Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, and Gorillaz – but it'll be just another chance for ticket touts to rip off fans.

The touts use secondary ticketing websites to sell tickets for hundreds of pounds more than their face value. Secondary ticketing sites such as Viagogo, Seatwave, Get Me In and StubHub were designed as ticket exchanges but campaigners claim they have become a “conduit for touts”.

Recent cases in Scotland have seen comedy fans outraged as tickets for shows by Peter Kay and Flight of the Conchords are touted for more than £3,000 when the face value was between £35-£65 for Kay and £28-62 for the Conchords.

Tickets for dozens of events in Scotland are now on sale for up to four times the face value - and that's a conservative estimate. Fans say they feel “pressured” to buy quickly because secondary ticketing websites show messages suggesting they have a limited time to make their purchase and tickets could sell out imminently.

Claire Turnham, who founded the Victims of Viagogo group after she was overcharged for Ed Sheeran tickets through the resale site, said: “I am being contacted now by Peter Kay fans who are desperately trying to get money back. Most people don’t know they’re on a reselling site.

“They go on and the site is psychologically manipulative because there are lots of pop-ups that say how many people are looking at the same time and how many seconds you have left to make the purchase. That puts people under pressure and panics them.

“The other thing is people aren’t always the seeing total cost before buying tickets. They think they’re paying one amount and they end up paying much more. I have heard some desperate stories from people who are highly distressed.”

Kasabian played at the SSE Hydro last night and tickets for the standing area were on sale for more than £100 on Viagogo last week, double the face value. One of Ticketmaster’s secondary ticketing sites Get Me In had tickets for the same area costing up to £110. Seatwave, also owned by Ticketmaster, was offering tickets for £65.

One person who bought a pair of Kasabian tickets was charged double their face value and when they were downloaded they had another person’s name printed on them.

One fan, Gordon Martin, who spoke on behalf of the buyer – a friend who has asked to remain anonymous – said his friend thought she was buying two of the best seats at the SSE Hydro but later discovered they were “about the worst tickets in the venue”.

A complaint has now been made to Viagogo that the buyer was sold the tickets – which were a birthday gift – under “false pretences”.

Martin, who works as a GP in Glasgow, said: “She downloaded the tickets last weekend to find them to be about the worst tickets in the venue and not worth £82 each, as she thought, but £39.50. When you add in the charges she paid £213 for two tickets worth under £80."

Martin also tried to buy tickets to see Glasgow comedian Kevin Bridges when they went on sale last week but had to give up.

He said: “I can get access to pre-sale tickets but I was told there was none available for the night I wanted and yet secondary ticketing sites have them on sale for around £100 each, more than double the face value.

“I’m just not going to bother, which is very disappointing for me and my family. But other people are being ripped off. These secondary ticketing sites are just outrageous. The price they show is not the price you pay and the charges are also massive.”

Tickets for next year’s performances by Bridges went on general release on Friday, with a limited number on pre-sale from Wednesday – but when the Sunday Herald looked at shows on secondary ticketing websites before the general release, the pre-sale tickets were already changing hands for up to £175 (face value £25 to £40). Some sites also say there are “less than one per cent of tickets remaining” even though most tickets had not yet gone on sale last Wednesday.

Robert Plant plays Glasgow's Armadillo tomorrow and tickets cost up to £150 on secondary ticketing sites, but the price varies depending on which site is accessed. Gorillaz tickets for a show on Wednesday are priced at just over £40 but one website is selling them for £79.

The Kooks will play at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on Tuesday and the starting price on Seatwave is £80. Viagogo lists tickets for upwards of £50 and when the Sunday Herald looked last week the website claimed there were “only two tickets left” and stated that dozens of people were viewing them. Similarly, StubHub’s website asks for more money than face value and warnings flash up about how many tickets remain.

Tom Barbour from South Lanarkshire tried to buy tickets to see electronic dance duo Galantis at the SSE Hydro as a birthday gift for his 16-year-old daughter, but paid “way in excess” of the face value on secondary ticketing site Viagogo.

He said: “When we clicked on the Glasgow dates, we were immediately hit with a message saying there was only three per cent of tickets left and 55 other people were viewing these tickets. When we clicked through to the next page another message came up saying there were now only two per cent of tickets left. Pressure was on, we had to get the tickets, we thought we had to act fast. A countdown clock adds time pressure to complete the transaction.

“We thought we were on a primary ticketing site – it is not at all clear it was a re-selling site – and thousands of other concert-goers have been similarly misled. When we clicked on the five tickets we wanted, a message came up saying they were the last five tickets in that area.

“The total cost was £305, much higher than what we wanted, but we believed that was the face value of the tickets and therefore we were getting the most expensive and best tickets in the house. However, the price was double the face value.

“We contacted Viagogo by email and phone to cancel, but got a standard response about not allowing refunds. To add insult to injury Viagogo does not offer to deliver tickets until three days before events and so we did not know if we would get tickets or get in. So, we ended up also buying standard tickets through the venue."

HOW FANS AND STARS ARE FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE TOUTS

Claire Turnham’s Victims of Viagogo campaign has helped fans claw back hundreds of pounds from resale sites since she set up a Facebook group in February. She is supporting Barbour and Martin in their pursuit of refunds.

She said: “This week we are celebrating because we have hit the £200,000 milestone in refunds. Every single refund has been fought for and it takes a lot of energy and commitment to get them. One person got £8,800 back. That was for a combination of twelve tickets for Six Nations rugby, and James Blunt and Ed Sheeran concerts.

“For the first time ever it’s the fans who have united, who are supporting each other, and who are fighting back. There is going to be fan-led change. This just cannot continue.”

Another group that is fighting the touts is The FanFair Alliance which was set up by a group of music managers who look after the interests of dozens of stars including Travis, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Laura Marling, Arctic Monkeys, Royal Blood, Mumford and Sons and Little Mix.

Spokesman Adam Webb said: “There are four main sites – Get Me In and Seatwave, both owned by Ticketmaster, and then you’ve got Stubhub, owned by Ebay, and Viagogo, which is owned by a multitude of investors.

“We think it’s perfectly reasonable to resell a ticket, but it must be at face value. The clear issue with these sites is they have become a conduit for large-scale ticket touts.”

SNP MP and musician Pete Wishart said when his band RunRig put their tickets on sale for their final show fans were “ripped off, cheated and betrayed by a ticketing infrastructure which is little better than a swindlers charter inhabited by touts and profiteers”.

Tickets sold out in minutes and immediately appeared on secondary ticketing sites, selling for four times the face value.

Wishart said: “What was worse was that those secondary sites, where these touts and scalpers make their killing, are owned by the official ticketing agency. It is a racket designed to enable the touts and the cheats to make their killing whilst ensuring that ticketing agencies secure a secondary cut.

“This cannot go on and is now threatening the whole music industry which supports 142,000 jobs.”

PROBE: SECONDARY TICKETING WEBSITES FALL SHORT OF CONSUMER LAW

A UK Government independent review of the secondary-ticketing market found websites “are seemingly falling short” when it comes to ensuring compliance with the provisions in the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Under the law buyers must be told the original face value of any tickets being resold and, where appropriate, the seat numbers and any other restrictions.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is now investigating suspected breaches of consumer protection law in the online secondary-tickets market.

Adam Webb of FanFair said: “Our campaign has been involved in two substantial Westminster committee evidence sessions and an enforcement investigation has been launched by the CMA.”

The Digital Economy Act 2017, announced in the summer, also criminalises touts who use bot technology to sweep up tickets and sell them at inflated prices online.

Webb said: “Quite a few hares have been set running. It won’t be too long before the CMA report comes back which will show whether secondary ticketing sites are meeting the obligations under the Consumer Rights Act.”

Kirsten McAlonan, who is the spokeswoman for Scotland’s largest indoor entertainment venue, the SSE Hydro in Glasgow, said “true fans” should get access to tickets at reasonable prices when they first go on sale.

However, she recognises that “we are part of an industry that acknowledges that there is a resale market.”

She said: “We would advise fans who choose to purchase tickets this way that they should always use a reputable secondary-ticketing provider. Some people need to sell-on their tickets if they can no longer attend an event. The prices on these sites are set by the sellers and other fans can choose whether or not they wish to purchase at that price, safe in the knowledge that the tickets are guaranteed.”

A StubHub spokesperson said: “Ticket resale is much more competitive and tickets – just like other consumer goods – are only sold at prices that fans are willing to pay. In as many of 50 per cent of cases this is below the original price paid.”

A spokeswoman for Ticketmaster, which runs Seatwave and Get Me In, said: “We won’t provide a comment on the record.”

The Viagogo press office sent a link to the frequently asked questions page of its website and declined to offer further comment.