Bruce Springsteen Fans Will Get Ticketmaster Refund
By Seraphina L.
The Boss is sounding pretty nice these days. We’re talking about Bruce Springsteen, of course. If you have an overbearing supervisor who sneaks up on you in your cubicle, Office Space style, we’re sorry about that. Unless you’re a Springsteen fan, that working environment for you may still sting. It’s just that it turns out not all Ticketmaster/Live Nation purchasers will have to suffer the high prices due to the massive business merge.
According to Reuters via Billboard, “fans will receive refunds for what the U.S. Federal Trade Commission [FTC] called ‘deceptive sales practices’ by TicketsNow, a ticket reselling unit of Ticketmaster.” The FTC, who are now a part of the Live Nation Entertainment Inc., announced this on Thursday after having guilty feelings about using deceptive “bait-and-switch tactics” for up to 14 Bruce Springsteen concerts last year.
Springsteen, himself, has vehemently expressed his thoughts about the injustice toward his fans starting back in last February and he continues to stand by his word. (As if we didn’t already think The Boss was a good enough guy for taking his name off of a lawsuit filed by ASCAP.) The FTC had gotten a substantial amount of complaints from the musician’s fans when ticket websites were redirecting them to sites, such as TicketsNow, where the prices tripled or even quadrupled face value. Some sites even fooled purchasers into buying “phantom tickets” which provided a follow up e-mail that claimed that they didn’t actually guarantee they had tickets in the first place.
If you were unaware of this, we can’t imagine you don’t agree with us when we say it’s just down right sleazy. FTC Chairman, Jon Leibowitz, is on our side as well. He was correct when he said, “Clearly consumers deserve better. They deserve to know what they’re buying, including the risk that their tickets won’t materialize.”
Sure, business plans are often trial and error but ticket reselling has never proven to be very popular. Indidually, Ticketmaster and Live Nation were neither involved with sites such as TicketsNow and are “moving on” with settlements. “Upward of a million dollars” will be paid to Springsteen fans. It’ll be like another tax refund!
What do you think of refunds from the FTC?
