Ticketmaster has the upper hand in a recent settlement, and we’re thinking the general public might be part of a scam. Again. As you are probably well aware by now, any customer who purchased a ticket on Ticketmaster’s online pay portal between the dates of October 21, 1999 and February 27, 2013 is eligible for rewards in a class action lawsuit.
A class action lawsuit that was filed in 2003 and claimed that Ticketmaster had been breaching California state law. The fees associated with orders during this timeframe–and perhaps well beyond it–were grossly inflated past the cost of processing the orders. It came down to the nitty gritty when UPS charges for ticket delivery were called into question as well.
So you may have a nice little email in your inbox this week as a result of the settlement. (That is, if you still have the password and email address associated with your Ticketmaster account from 13+ years ago. We had to request a new password and get ourselves access to several long-abandoned email accounts.) You have codes to redeem two (2) tickets to each event, worth the amount they probably jacked your fees a decade ago.
Ticketmaster was sneaky about the settlement, though. They have opened a specific number of seats to a very narrow class of events on their site just for class action voucher codes. The variety of shows is dismal, at best, and the locations are not prime for even the most avid of show-goers. (The closest venue to this location right now is 3 hours and 48 minutes away.) They’re making it almost impossible to redeem your vouchers, as it’s not in the company’s best interest to do favors for the general concert-going public.
The site indicates that they are still updating the list of shows. This is something we expect at present, as the vouchers are redeemable through June of 2020. Don’t expect the high dollar ticket locations you may have splurged for when you purchased back at the turn of the century, because most available seats are the lowest price level. (Think lawn seats at a Darius Rucker concert in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska. Because that’s what you’re looking at. We aren’t harping on good ol’ Darius, but that drive looks dismal.)
For more info, check out the litigation page.
Thanks for your valiant efforts of decades past, Curt Schlesinger. You’re a stand up guy.
