LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has mailed claim forms to more than 1,000 concertgoers who are eligible for refunds because they allegedly were steered from the Ticketmaster website to its ticket resale website TicketsNow while buying tickets to attend Bruce Springsteen concerts last year. Ticketmaster and its affiliates agreed to pay the refunds in order to settle FTC charges that they used deceptive bait-and-switch tactics to sell event tickets.
According to the February 2010 FTC complaint, Ticketmaster steered unknowing consumers to TicketsNow, where tickets were offered at prices that were sometimes double, triple, or quadruple the face value of the ticket. Under the settlement, these concertgoers will get back the difference between what they paid for their tickets and what they would have paid on Ticketmaster. For example, if a consumer paid $400 for two tickets from TicketsNow, and those same two tickets would have cost $200 from Ticketmaster, the customer will get a $200 refund.
The settlement agreement covers concerts that took place in 14 cities: Glendale, Ariz.; San Jose, Calif.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Hartford, Conn.; Atlanta, Ga.; Chicago, Ill.; Boston, Mass.; Saint Paul, Minn.; East Rutherford, N.J.; Long Island, N.Y.; Pittsburgh, Pa..; University Park, Pa..; and Washington, DC.
Ticketmaster provided the FTC with a list that included the 1,018 eligible concertgoers who had not received refunds for the extra money they paid to buy the higher-priced tickets from TicketsNow.
Those eligible to submit claims in this case must do so on or before October 8th via snail mail, as Ticketmaster has not provided an online means of submitting claims. As of yet, there has been no date listed for the distribution of the checks. – CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
