"Ticketmaster secretly colluding with scalpers, undercover sting finds (l..."
I hope something comes from this, though Ticketmaster is basically the Deadpool of legal actions. But this is very slimy, especially when you think about how it rips off not just fans but the artists, who are shut out from the secondary market prices that are essentially, thanks to Ticketmaster's collusion with scalpers revealed in this piece, the primary market prices.
Inside a Caesars Palace conference room filled with some of the world’s most successful ticket scalpers, a row of promotional booths pitch software programs that help harvest thousands of sport and concert seats to be resold online at hefty markups.
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As gatekeeper to the entertainment industry’s most coveted events, Ticketmaster implements strict purchasing limits designed to prevent scalpers from using bots to buy tickets on a mass scale. In the past, company officials have publicly disparaged the resale ticket market, calling scalpers “pirates” and a threat to fans — even urging governments to criminalize the activity.
But in one corner of the Las Vegas convention floor sat a conspicuous Ticketmaster booth welcoming scalpers with a solemn reassurance: Ticketmaster wants to share in the profits of the resale market by facilitating the mass scalping of its tickets — in direct violation of its own terms of use.
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Reporters from the Star and CBC, posing as small-time scalpers from Canada, listened as sales staff pitched a proprietary Ticketmaster software program designed to help bulk buyers resell thousands of tickets.
“I have brokers that have literally a couple of hundred Ticketmaster accounts,” said a sales executive with Ticketmaster Resale speaking to the undercover reporters.
The web-based tool — called Trade Desk — allows scalpers to seamlessly sync their Ticketmaster accounts (where they buy their tickets) with their online resale operation, quickly posting each seat to ticket reselling websites including StubHub, Vivid Seats and ticketmaster.com.
It also gives Ticketmaster a new revenue source: a second commission on every “verified resale” ticket sold on Ticketmaster.com (on top of the commission it collects on the original purchase of each ticket).
2. "Re: Class Action" In response to Reply # 1 Fri Sep-21-18 10:30 AM by Stringer Bell
I wouldn't be surprised if all Ticketmaster customers are unknowingly agreeing to arbitration and waiving their right to a class action. I recently discovered that I had unknowingly entered a similar agreement, with a vendor who was committing widespread fraud (for small dollar amounts each time though, so it would be uneconomical for any single individual to sue).
The fact that Ticketmaster has survived as long as it has, their legal fine print is probably airtight.
*EDIT* Yep. It's a little ways down on this terms sheet under "Disputes, Including Mandatory Arbitration and Class Action Waiver":
You have to be careful that you know what type of ticket you buy from their site. They have "verified resellers" tickets right there on the site, so when you go to select your tickets, pay attention to the little "stub" icon where it says "type". The last option under that is "verified resale ticket", and those come from...yup...they blatant as fuck
Theres no way a company that big has never had a hand in scalping.
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