New Jersey and Ticketmaster Settle Lawsuit

Monday saw a new development in one of the cases against Ticketmaster, the one brought by the state of New Jersey for Ticketmaster diverting traffic from its site to an affiliate that charged higher prices. In the particular incident in question, customers who attempted to buy tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s show at the Meadowlands on Ticketmaster were informed that the show was sold out and sent to Ticketsnow, a ticket resale site that was charging prices up to 50 times face value. Over 2000 people complained to the state and Bruce Springsteen himself came out against the company. The state Attorney General then took up the case, demanding Ticketmaster discontinue such activities.

And now the state has been successful, at least somewhat, Ticketmaster has agreed to pay the state $350,000, refund everyone who they ripped off for Springsteen tickets, and change the its handling of secondary sales. The good news is that the company has said that it will apply the changes across the entire country. Unfortunately, from the statement by the Attorney General, Anne Milgram, it seems that the only change that will be made in secondary sales is that Ticketmaster must now clearly mark that they are transferring people to a secondary sales site, something they did not do in the Springsteen case. Milgram says she will continue to investigate Ticketmaster, who admitted no wrongdoing in this case. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, seeing a good PR chance, has said that he will also take up the fight against the company. Ticketmaster also faces a lawsuit in Canada from a man who was redirected to TicketsNow when trying to buy Smashing Pumpkins tickets, an action he believes violates a provincial law against scalping for higher than face value. Senator Charles Schumer has said that this ruling will not stop his investigation of the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger.

Source: townhall.com
Image via Wikipedia