Ticketmaster Settles Over Springsteen Controversy
Refund due for ripped off fans
Ticketmaster have been forced to refund Bruce Springsteen fans who were controversially conned into buying tickets for inflated value through a secondary retailer.
The story goes that on 2 February 2009 Bruce Springsteen fans trying to buy tickets for a show at the Verizon Center in Washington through the Ticketmaster main site were told that there were "No Tickets Found”. They were instead provided with a link to TicketsNow – the secondary retailer offshoot of Ticketmaster – where they were able to buy tickets for grossly inflated prices (some tickets up to four times the face value).
The problem? Tickets for the show were NOT sold out and Ticketmaster were in fact simply sending people to their ticket reseller for no reason.
"Buying tickets should not be a game of chance," said Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "Ticketmaster's refrain is that it sold through TicketsNow to give consumers more choices. But when you steer consumers to your resale Web sites without clear disclosures, and they unknowingly buy tickets at higher prices, they'll be left with a sour note."
The controversy doesn’t end there, either. Some of the tickets sold through TicketsNow were speculative sales – i.e. the tickets were sold even though no tickets were in hand. It took up to three months to refund fans that had bought tickets but had not received them.
"TicketsNow.com sold phantom tickets without letting consumers know that the tickets did not exist. Then, the company held onto consumers' money, sometimes for months, when it knew those fans weren't going to see Springsteen," Leibowitz said. "Clearly consumers deserve better. They deserve to know what they're buying, including the risk that their tickets won't materialize."
When the deception was spotted there were complaints from fans and from Springsteen himself and the Federal Trade Commission agreed that this wasn’t fair and now Ticketmaster and TicketsNow are to refund fans the difference in the ticket prices – i.e. if a fan paid £300 for two tickets worth £150 they will get £150 back.
The FTC has also warned TicketsNow about future practices and has sent a letter to other secondary retailers warning them to be more open about their practices in the future.