Regulator fines online auction site Ticketveiling.nl €270,000 over hidden bidding bots

The company behind Ticketveiling.nl, House of Tickets, was fined 270,000 euros by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) after regulators found it used hidden bidding bots in online auctions. Such bots mislead users into believing they were competing against other people. The regulator said this practice artificially pushed prices higher and distorted the auction process.

The bidding bot operated under different names and used varying bidding strategies in auctions between Aug. 1 and Dec. 2, 2024. During that period, it was active in roughly 70,000 auctions involving outings, services, and products, according to the ACM.

The regulator said users may have chosen not to participate or may not have accepted bids if they had known an algorithm was competing against them. It concluded that House of Tickets "knowingly placed its own commercial interests above those of consumers.”

The ACM also found that consumers were misled about how final auction prices were determined, calling the violations serious.

The initial penalty was set at 300,000 euros, but the ACM reduced it to 270,000 euros due to the company’s cooperative stance during the investigation. Ticketveiling.nl has since ceased operations.

House of Tickets acknowledged its mistakes and said, "It ended the method on its own initiative before the ACM’s investigation,” the authority noted, citing the company’s statement.