BALTIMORE, MD (CelebrityAccess) — Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh announced his office has reached a settlement with Ticketmaster over services fees the company was alleged to have improperly charged consumers for tickets at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland.
According to the Attorney General’s office, Ticketmaster continued adding service fees on top of the listed price for event tickets, after the Hippodrome Theatre switched to a sales model that required all fees to be included in the up-front pricing.
After the Hippodrome instituted its new policy, Ticketmaster added a disclosure stating that consumers purchasing tickets for events at the Hippodrome would not pay additional fees. While fees were not levied on ticket purchases on the primary market, secondary market purchases erroneously received the same disclosure but were charged fees, sometimes as high as $31 per ticket.
More than 4,000 ticket-buyers were affected by the fees, the Attorney General’s office said.
Under the settlement deal, Ticketmaster has agreed to refund all of the fees that were improperly charged to consumers.
The settlement also contains an injunction that requires Ticketmaster not to mislead consumers regarding the fees it charges, and Ticketmaster will pay the Consumer Protection Division $25,000 for its investigative costs.
“We were able to resolve this matter so that consumers will get back fees that they should not have been charged,” said Attorney General Frosh.
