Ticketmaster, always known for its sparkling public image, is facing two major class action lawsuits in New Jersey and Massachusetts along with some serious allegations.
Pollstar reports the suits address how TM conducts business with its subsidiary ticket-resale site TicketsNow. The New Jersey suit, filed May 11 over a purchase made for The Dead tickets (oh boy), claims Ticketmaster and TicketsNow is pushing second-hand tickets on potential customers at an inflated price while not overtly disclosing the original ticket value.
There, Kelly was charged nearly $830 for four tickets. The complaint alleges Kelly was not informed of the tickets’ face value ($99) until he received them in the mail.
Just days later, John O’Hurley of Massachusetts filed another proposed class-action complaint. O’Hurley apparently had a similar experience to Kelly when he attempted to purchase two tickets to a Phish concert Jan. 31 and was “redirected” to TicketsNow.
The subtext here is that it’s curious how large chunks of tickets wind up on TicketsNow within seconds of Ticketmaster’s public on-sales. Since TicketNow’s launch, public suspicion has grown that Ticketmaster is allegedly holding aside quantities of tickets with the intent of posting on TicketsNow at inflated prices. Such practices are at best legally questionable and likely fall under bait-and-switch regulations, but remain nothing more than allegations. We’ll keep you up to date as this story unfolds.
Also, since when are the people causing trouble hippies who just wanna see Phish and The Dead?
UPDATE: While these suits are new, a similar controversy was settled with a New Jersey Springsteen show in January, and Ticketmaster agreed to stop some tactics that tried to push traffic towards TicketsNow. It didn’t solve all of the complaints, obviously, and anyone who purchased tickets to the Springsteen show is excluded from any possible settlement from the new class action suits.
