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Ticketmaster Customers, Get Ready For Your (Tiny) Class-Action Payout
An anonymous reader writes "If you used Ticketmaster's website to buy tickets between October 21, 1999 and October 19, 2011, you're in for a windfall. Well, a $1.50 per ticket order windfall. Because of a proposed class action settlement, Ticketmaster is being forced to credit $1.50 per ticket order (up to 17 orders) to customers because they profited from 'processing fees' without declaring as much. And despite the reparations, Ticketmaster can continue to profit off transactions — they just have to say they're doing so on their website."
Got this mail today. I was about to delete the mail as another spamscam that got through but the text looked like too much hardwork to have gone in for a phishing attempt or a "Nigerian scam". I lived in the USA 10 years ago and may have purchased something from Ticketmaster.
The word master is right there in the name. They really do consider ticket buyers their slaves.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
..that the attorneys are going to get substantially more than $1.50 ($16,500,000 shared between them)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I've used ticketmaster for events in the UK and Australia. Do I get anything? Or is it just the USA?
...where a commercial enterprise has to DECLARE that they operate with the intent to make a profit.
No wonder our financial system is nearly in ruins.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
They also are allowed to force that fee (Now $2.50) even if you buy the tickets at the venue.
It's why I dont go to see shows anymore. Horribly overpriced, everyone has to get an additional profit fee in there, and you end up with crap seats unless you pay 4 figures.
Screw it, it's not worth it anymore. And from the performance of the band at the last 3 concerts I was at, they suck live anyways. Beastie Boys utterly stunk live.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
We at Ticketmaster would like to remind everyone, during this difficult time, that the reason that their payout is so tiny and late is not that the penalties for audacious fraud on a grand scale are pitifully small; but that trial lawyers are evil and greedy.
Had we embraced the glorious truths of tort reform, you could have been spared having to receive such an insultingly small offer at all, and we could have gotten away with the entire thing.
"And despite the reparations, Ticketmaster can continue to profit off transactions — they just have to say they're doing so on their website."
No, really? A private enterprise is allowed to profit off its business provided it does so in a manner that is not fraudulent? Shocking!
And despite the reparations, Ticketmaster can continue to profit off transactions â" they just have to say they're doing so on their website.
That's all we can really ask for, besides actually getting back the ill-gotten gains, and having any unclaimed ill-gotten gains reclaimed and put to some good use, which I note hasn't happened. (Operational costs would take care of making it costly as opposed to simply unprofitable.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well the problem with this "$1.50 refund" is that it's actually $1.50 off your next purchase with ticketmaster".
Read them email to the end. I got this email a few days ago, and as far as I can tell this is legalized highway robbery. For the low, low price of $16.5 million to the lawyers who took up the cause, Ticketmaster gets free publicity and additional repeat customers, while not having to pay their customers anything. There is so absolutely little for the average customer to have gained from this, there might have not even been a lawsuit to begin with.
These sorts of cases where the lawyers representing the public are well compensated need to require that a cash payment be put in to a fund to be claimed against. Reading that email from Ticketmaster was a waste of my time.
moox. for a new generation.
I received the email regarding this class action and, well, it's stupid. people knew how much they paid and what they were paying for and agreed to it. this whole thing is unnecessary.
I lived in Orlando, Florida about the time the Orlando Magic were becoming the next big thing. Ticketmaster was in charge of ticketing at the "O-rena". Funny thing is, the city of Orlando passed an ordinance that individuals selling tickets and charging more than $1 over face value could be arrested for scalping. Ticketmaster however could charge their "convenience fee" without any fear of retribution.
Same here. I'm 41 and back in my concert going days I saw Eric Clapton, The Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top all for $30 each. My adult daughter was out in California and wanted to go to a Janet Jackson concert but doesn't have a credit card. She sent me a check and I bought the tickets from you know who. Never again. I can't understand why concerts haven't been killed off by this crap. I can't imagine paying $200 to see a live performance that sounds half as good as the CD. And the worst part is knowing that a large chunk of that money goes to such a seedy organization.
What is justice? They charged you more for processing fees in order to profit from the sales. Now their customers can get their ticket service free of charge for the amount of times they got screwed, they no get it gratis and TicketMaster loses some amount of money. This nullifies their illegal profit.
This is a punishment for TicketMaster, not a "cash please" thing. Be lucky that the system doesn't always charge insane fees in the millions for a small processing fee. $1.50 USD is seriously not a massive amount of money and in this capitalistic world; you could have always bought them somewhere else.
Here be signatures
With all that money at least 11 tickets I'll be able to buy 1 concert beer :-)
There was a recent class action settlement against eBay which I accidentally was a part of. I received a check for $1.63. $1.63!! You Ticketmaster users only got $1.50. Eat my dust!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
I'm sure they'll find some way to blame it on file sharers.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You are hard against the lawyers, they managed to get ticketmaster to remove the usual "this offer cannot be combined with any other offer". /sarcasm
and asking for a fee which will be a around 20% of the settlement. While the number is very large I doubt you or I or much of anyone on this site knows the true costs involved in running a major law firm and maintaining a case over eight years.
So while it is simple to demagogue someone/something/etc because we don't understand it still does not make it right, let alone worthy of being rated insightful on this site. We should not give into our ignorance, let alone jealously, of others simply because of a dollar amount. It cheapen us and the very work we do. I am quite certain you can find any number of people on the street who would be aghast at how much "some" people get paid to work on computers and that attitude has the same founding.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This is one instance where I don't really care that the lawyers are cleaning up, because it's at TM's expense.
There is so absolutely little for the average customer to have gained from this
That's true. But to be fair, compare it to how much they were skimming off of each "transaction fee".
$1.50 USD is seriously not a massive amount of money and in this capitalistic world; you could have always bought them somewhere else.
This is the real problem though. In MOST cases, you cannot "just buy them somewhere else". Ticketmaster has a virtual monopoly on ticket sales for most major venues. You cannot buy tickets any other way, including directly from the venue box office. This forces consumers to pay their exorbitant prices & fees, regardless of how many they tack on. The only real other option is just to not go see the show.
If it were MERELY a way to get tickets online-- then charging a Buck for the "service" would be fine. But it's really a profit-gobbling obscenity, that creates a monopoly for Ticket prices.
We even have laws against scalping now -- which wouldn't be necessary if tickets were just SOLD at the gate, or there were enough concerts/large venue performances that scarcity weren't a problem.
But TicketMaster in essence is a Monopoly on top of local Monopolies. You aren't going to watch a Braves baseball game unless you are at the Braves stadium or their competitors -- this goes the same for watching a concert; reasonably, nobody is going to drive 200 miles to the next concert venue for that particular artist.
>> So either there will have to be a regulated Limit on prices -- because TicketMaster can fix them, or there has to be no TICKETMASTER at all. The could be sold off to all the local companies that sell tickets as a "clearinghouse" since that's the useful function they serve.
When most of the profits go to the middleman -- there is ALWAYS a problem in a system.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
This is a punishment for TicketMaster, not a "cash please" thing. Be lucky that the system doesn't always charge insane fees in the millions for a small processing fee. $1.50 USD is seriously not a massive amount of money and in this capitalistic world; you could have always bought them somewhere else.
This is not a punishment.
People now have the choice to (A) not get the refund or (B) pay TicketMaster to get the refund.
Unless you consider "slightly less profit on customers you might have otherwise lost" as punishment.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Scalping is only illegal based on a technicality.
Tickets are a "right to rent a space" - so the customer doesn't own a ticket -- the ticket represents a "rental."
If we follow the LAWS of this nation; "The Consumer is Sovereign." Meaning; I can buy a car and sell it, and I can run it off a cliff if it doesn't damage someone else's property or cause harm -- it is MY car. Even on that concept, our CorpGov has put limits, because you cannot buy and sell more than a couple cars a year in most states -- obviously because this interferes with "legitimate car dealers" -- meaning those who've paid for the legislation to stop you.
When I buy an airplane ticket -- I often check the prices of some online "clearinghouses" for a better price -- why does TicketMaster raise prices, but Travelocity lowers them? They are both instances of a unique event and an empty seat that means a loss if it isn't filled. But with Airlines, the "scalper" is selling off otherwise unused seats, and,... well, in the case of a scalper, they are trying to profit while not being a mega-billion dollar company like TicketMaster.
Crooks hate competition.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
I smell a class action lawsuit!
They suck on more levels than that. Wish I got here earlier so more people could read this.
1) Their login form sends incorrect passwords so I can't login to print my tickets
2) they refuse to support me on this since I bought the tickets through a 3rd party (actually Ticktackticket, who they bought years ago)
3) I point this out, they still refuse to help because apparently the gig is in Mexico (it's in Spain)
4) I lost 60 euros on this bullshit and they still refuse to offer any level of support
Moral of the rant: ticketmaster suck, and interminably so.
Try seeing The Who or Clapton for $30 these days.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
What is evil about scalping? Scalping only happens because the tickets are underpriced and therefore scarce. Scalping just moves the prices up to the actual market price.
The Horror! A company actually charged a fee, for profit? How does everyone that buys tickets from Ticketmaster think they pay their employees, keep their servers up and running and the lights on? Of course they make a profit from their "processing fee." Anyone that thought any different is naive about how a business works or just didn't give it any thought.
It was easy :-) All I had to do was buy a ticket from a venue that's using TicketMaster as its only ticket sales channel. There wasn't any way to buy my ticket without TM's fees, and there wasn't any way to buy it without paying $8-10 for parking even though I wasn't driving there. (I live about a mile from a venue that's usually a bad traffic jam for concerts, and I'd much rather bike there, not get stuck in traffic, and not need to worry about my substance consumption during the concert :-) Also, one year I ended up with a subscription to Rolling Stone that I'm sure was padded on to my bill, even though I didn't see any checkbox where I authorized it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I received the notification and I opted out. Why? Because this does not benefit the customers. It only benefits the lawyers who filed the class action suit. Ultimately it hurts the customer because it will cause TicketMaster et. al. to raise prices.
I just got a check in the mail for one penny for an ebay motors class action settlement. Printing and mailing the check probably cost a dollar. Reminds me of the time my school sent me a bill (in the mail) for $19 cents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_on_Strike#Lawsuit
... Kyle convinces the world leaders to give Canada a consolation prize of gumballs and Bennigan's coupons. The strike is settled .... Aboutman throws a party to celebrate end of the strike, treating it as a great victory for Canada, but Terrance and Phillip realize that the gumballs and coupons are worth $3,008, whereas Canada lost $10.4 million by striking.
I've NEVER bought anything from Ticketmaster. I've been getting spam from them for seven years. (Yes, I could block it -- but instead I feed it to blacklists.)
I excluded myself from the class action suit and expressly declined to waive my rights against Ticketmaster for any claims referenced in the suit. Members of the class and/or subclass can contest the terms of the settlement, including attorney compensation terms, by sending letters to the court and both counsels. Instructions on how to do all of this are included in the class settlement notice.
Also if you do not use your $1.50 coupon then they will give $1.50 to a charity.
I disagreed because the settlement A) Requires that I do business with the company that allegedly breached a duty to me and B) overcompensates counsel (awards an amount equal to 2.5 times the firms normal hourly billing rate).
Option A also includes Ticketmaster giving the unclaimed award money to charity. My wife and I are choosing that one.
I just got a check for some odd EBay related class action. Total reward to me was something like $1.60, but my total disbursement was a whopping $0.08 after I assume "processing and legal fees". Just to be irritating and get my money's worth, I thought I should call up the contact number and ask lots of questions so I get my money's worth from the lawyers.
Why do they charge a processing fee on a their primary service? They don't get to charge for a processing fee for a service that I have no choice but to use. It is a sunk cost of their chosen business model. If they want to modify the end price of their product to cover their costs that is fine, but don't tack on a fee that is your cost of doing business.
Airlines tack on a baggage fee, but at least I have a choice on whether to use that service. Airlines are probably a bad example because they also have a bunch of other non-discretionary fees that ought to just be included in the ticket cost so you can compare them with their competition.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
So the masses continue a race to the bottom while hte few who are already rich (lawyers) get richer.
Except if I did it it would be called scalping, and supposedly morally questionable.
Nullius in verba
You could always file a Class Action Lawsuit against the Class Action Lawyers?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
But.. but... how could you NOT want your Weekly TicketAlert?!? It's Yours!
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".