A U.S. law firm is seeking to launch a class-action lawsuit on behalf of fans who purchased inflated resale tickets through Ticketmaster, alleging the company runs a professional scalper program that may have violated consumer rights.
The effort by Hagens Berman follows a CBC News/Toronto Star investigation that found Ticketmaster representatives at a Las Vegas convention were recruiting professional scalpers to use a web-based sales tool called TradeDesk to resell millions of dollars in tickets.
Company reps at the convention told undercover reporters posing as ticket brokers that their division turns a blind eye to scalpers who use hundreds of Ticketmaster online accounts to buy up seats — violating Ticketmaster's ticket-buying limits.
The revelations have provoked angry responses from music and sports fans around the globe, with many taking to social media denouncing Ticketmaster for profiting from fees on both their box office tickets.
Dear Ticketmaster: <br><br>You suck. <br><br>Sincerely, <br>Music Fans —@VibeTickets <a href="https://twitter.com/Ticketmaster?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Ticketmaster</a> It SUCKS how you allow resellers to purchase bulk tixs only to grossly inflate the prices so that lower-middle class Americans cannot attend special such <a href="https://twitter.com/MichelleObama?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MichelleObama</a>. I'm in Dallas & your website & phone lines direct callers to "verified resellers". —@CounselorK I've always disliked using Ticketmaster, now I know why. —@kelsy_marlier
Ticketmaster issued a statement Thursday to CBC News, saying it was "categorically untrue that Ticketmaster has any program in place to enable resellers to acquire large volumes of tickets."
However, the company did not deny the existence of its program helping industrial-scale scalpers to resell their large inventories.
Ticketmaster also announced it has begun an internal review acknowledging its seller code of conduct prohibits resellers from purchasing tickets that exceed the posted ticket limit for an event. It said its policy also prohibits the "creation of fictitious user accounts for the purpose of circumventing ticket limit detection in order to amass tickets intended for resale."
In Canada, a lawyer behind a class-action lawsuit already underway against Ticketmaster, and involving allegations of price gouging, says he intends to expand his claim to include damages to fans affected by the company's scalper program.
Filed in February with the Court of Queen's Bench for Saskatchewan, Merchant Law Group in Regina notified Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation that it was preparing to sue on behalf of a Regina resident.
Lawyer Tony Merchant decided to launch the suit after Canada's Competition Bureau accused the company of price gouging.
Merchant's suit has yet to be certified as a class action, and none of the claims have been tested in court.
But he confirmed to CBC News on Friday that he soon plans to amend his statement of claim to include formal allegations and claims for compensation, tied to the secret scalper program.
"It's a result of the CBC/Star investigation that got us looking at whether we can advance a claim successfully for breach of competition and consumer affairs legislation," said Merchant. "We knew about the issues of scalpers. But we did not know there was evidence available of them working conjunctively with scalpers. Getting those things on camera are things a court will listen to … You've sent us back to the drawing board."
Merchant says if the suit is allowed to proceed, it will "green-light" the calling of Ticketmaster employees to testify under oath and force the company to hand over internal documents."
CBC News goes undercover to expose Ticketmaster's secret scalper program. 1:21
In the U.S., Hagens Berman has set up a website, signing up fans as it prepares its own lawsuit.
"We are evaluating a class action lawsuit to provide restitution to consumers and to stop the unfair business practices that have been reported," Elaine Byszewski, a spokesperson for Hagens Berman told CBC in an email.
The law firm calls it a consumer rights effort, saying "our firm hopes to achieve relief for the many Ticketmaster customers who purchased inflated resale tickets …. and an injunction forcing Live Nation to end its secret scalping scheme."
It goes on to say the firm "believes that those who unknowingly paid high prices for scalped tickets facilitated by Ticketmaster deserve compensation for the wrongdoing and profiteering of this corporation."
Ticketmaster has not yet responded to requests for additional comment regarding the lawsuits.
Ro-bearBerbil on September 23rd, 2018 at 01:41 UTC »
The issue is a bit more complicated than most people believe, and it's covered very well by the Freakonomics podcast here. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/
Its an enlightening podcast, but if you don't want to listen to it:
Most parts of the live entertainment industry want Ticketmaster to be there. That's the issue. Some artists and most consumers don't want them.
It's a Supply/Demand problem. The demand for concert tickets at the initial prices tickets are marked exceed the supply. Normally the market would self adjust, but performers don't want to make their die hard fans pay $200/seat or higher so they refuse to sell them that high and won't allow venues to price them that high.
Ticketmaster works with the venues and the promoters and does a profit share in most cases in agreement for taking the heat for inflating the price. Not in every case, but in some cases it even makes it back to the performers.
So, Ticketmaster has been positioning itself to be hated since the 80s and that's why they nearly have a monopoly on ticket sales. Because they can raise the price and much closer match demand to supply.
The resale market also takes a huge cut of this. Ticketmaster even has their own verified resale program. Ticketmaster and the venue would rather recoup all of the value of the increased costs, but can't without making the venue or performer look bad so a lot of that value is lost. But the reality is...as long as the tickets are sold, they've achieved their goal as the promoter knows pretty quickly if they'll be profitable.
Ticketmaster wants a larger cut of the resale market too, and of course doesn't want it to be terribly public. But the scalpers are going to be there, so why not take part of that pie too? This is them trying to be a larger part of the ecosystem.
So, long story short. No one in the industry really wants it to be changed. Artists like Taylor Swift have tried with the "Verified Fan" program where it gave much more priority to those fans who were willing to jump through hoops bots would have trouble doing.
But in the end, aside from legislating a change, no one is motivated to change this.
Ticketmaster's entire job is to take the heat from the other parts of the supply chain and be hated. They really want all that hate to go their way. Changing it would erode their business model and make them irrelevant.
The podcast will explain it better than I did, nothing of this article surprises me.
F4STW4LKER on September 23rd, 2018 at 00:03 UTC »
Did somebody say class-action? Where do I sign up for my 17 cents? F you ticketmaster. F you lawyers.
GlobalTravelR on September 23rd, 2018 at 00:01 UTC »
This will be settled out of court.
Ticketmaster will admit no wrongdoing.
Lawyers will rake in tens of millions of dollars.
Everybody who bought a ticket through Ticketmaster, or its resale site, will get a $25 certificate towards the purchase of another ticket, through Ticketmaster.
Ticketmaster will raise their fees to cover the settlement.
Fuck Ticketmaster.