Ticketmaster does it again. In February the quasi-monopoly botched sales for Bruce Springsteen's current tour and sent fans to Ticketmaster's TicketsNow.com scalper site, where they had to buy seats at huge markups. Now, AP reports, TicketsNow says it sold too many tickets for the Springsteen show at DC's Verizon Center on Monday. The company has been calling fans who thought they locked up seats at hundreds of dollars to tell them the bad news. TicketsNow says it will give people refunds along with free tickets in the nosebleed section.

But I doubt they're happy. Baltimore resident Joe Compton said he got locked out of buying Springsteen seats at face value from Ticketmaster in early February. So he went to TicketsNow, he says, paid $440 for two tickets plus another $80 in nuisance charges and was told the tix would be mailed in early May. They never came

"On Friday they called, leave me a message," he told me on the phone. " 'Contact us.' I've called Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They have not gotten back to me. I go and look on my TicketsNow account. It says 'the order is complete'.... They've kept 520 of my bucks for three months and I don't think I'm getting the deal."

He's feeling doubly abused and very ticked off. Good thing Ticketmaster doesn't do anything important, like fly planes or run nuclear energy plants. Dear Justice Department and FTC: Don't let Ticketmaster merge with Live Nation!

Here is February's Hancock column on the Ticketmaster/Springsteen debacle:

'Boss' furor shakes Ticketmaster's reign

Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009
Byline: JAY HANCOCK

Lettie Holman swears on Bruce Springsteen's soul patch that Ticketmaster automatically kicked her over to its high-priced TicketsNow scalper site when she was trying this week to buy seats for The Boss' tour stop at Washington's Verizon Center.

Ticketmaster says she and others who make similar claims are misremembering or lying.So it is that, even before it starts, Springsteen's newest tour has become a public relations disaster for him and America's best-loved concert-ticket monopoly.

Springsteen is "furious" at Ticketmaster, he said in a prepared statement. Ticketmaster denies forcing Internet buyers to TicketsNow, where one is helpfully offered seats at $500 a pop, and says problems experienced by Springsteen fans have been exaggerated.

Continue reading "TicketsNow sold phantom DC Springsteen tix" »

Posted by Jay Hancock at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Ticketmaster
        

From the Wall Street Journal:

Ticketmaster has received subpoenas on ticket-reseller agreements from DOJ, FTC, others.

I assume that means the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission will look at the relationship between Ticketmaster, Ticketmaster's TicketsNow scalper site and the resellers who use TicketsNow. Owning a primary ticket sales site and a scalper site is a big conflict of interest for one company.

Posted by Jay Hancock at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Ticketmaster
        

So I asked Ticketmaster spokesman Albert Lopez about the experience of a Baltimore grandmother who tried to by Disney on Ice tickets online from Ticketmaster. She was shocked to find out later that she had actually bought from TicketsNow, Ticketmaster's marked-up, scalper site, for much more than face value.

"I've got to tell you, I think it's a generational thing," he said. For most people, buying tickets online "is very plain and straightforward." If they aren't comfortable with the Internet, he says, older people should buy by phone or at the box office.

So it's the woman's fault that she paid $136 more than the tickets were supposed to cost. I guess the numerous young people who have told me similar stories are likewise to blame. The relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow is rife with conflicts of interest. Next week there are congressional hearings on Ticketmaster's proposed merger with Live Nation. Maybe they'll get into the TicketsNow problem, too.

Posted by Jay Hancock at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Ticketmaster