A reader sent in the following tip about a Vegas-based ticket broker:
There is a company by the name of Ticketsmyway.com (Event Tickets LLC) that has the scam of the century running. Their operations run like this.
- Advertise tickets slightly cheaper than Stubhub and other sites.
- Consumers place an order online for tickets often months in advance
- Credit cards are charged full amount immediately
- Customers are told to check status of order online
- Orders always show as “processing”
- As date of event gets closer, customer starts calling to find out Status of shipping
- 1-2 days before event, customer are told tickets are “no longer available”
- Phone rep says a refund can only be requested online
- Terms of Use online say any refund request is considered a “cancellation” and customer is charged 45% of the purchase price
Even though company cannot produce tickets, customers lose 45% of their entire purchase price.
The reader adds, “After first call that gets through, company notes number and consumer can NEVER AGAIN get through. Calls are forwarded to a voicemail account.”
We looked around online and indeed there were lots of complaints about TicketsMyWay and Event Tickets LLC. Tracy at Rip-off Report says a live CSR told her the tickets were going to be shipped within a few weeks—but they never arrived. When Tracy finally got through to the same CSR again, she was told they were no longer available. A second CSR offered to replace the tickets for $200 more, despite the fact that “their terms and conditions clearly state, if your seats are no longer available they reserve the right to upgrade or provide comparable tickets at NO EXTRA COST.”
A customer at onerave.com claims only six of his eight tickets were shipped, because ticketsmyway added $332 in shipping and handling fees “and decided to make up the difference by removing two tickets!”
Rocky at pissedconsumer.com spent four days seeing “processing” on his order and not getting his calls returned. He finally canceled the order and disputed the charges. “I never heard back from them until I received a lawsuit package saying I have to pay by 5/30/08 or go to court.”
After our tipster contacted us, she sent in a follow-up email a few days later:
Fyi, I just received a call from someone (no name given) at that company threatening legal action if I continue to “make slanderous statements about them.” From other stories online, this is their basic modus operandi and strong-arm intimidation tactic to get consumers to stay quiet about being defrauded and scammed. They steal from you and THEY threaten legal action. What country are we living in again?
Stay far, far away from ticketsmyway and Event Tickets LLC.
(Photo: Getty)
More From Consumerist
-
Great American Beer Festival Turning Into Great American PR Disaster For Ticketmaster
-
Can Redbox Do To Ticketmaster What It Did To Blockbuster?
-
Louis C.K Says He’s Trying To Do His Fans A Solid By Selling Show Tickets Himself
-
Theater Sells Carrots For Performances Instead Of Tickets To Avoid Higher Taxes
-
Lawsuit Claims Ticketmaster/Live Nation Is A Fee-Hungry Monopoly
They are obviously confused as to who is the a-hole in the situation. I would love for them to take me to court. Bring it on.
Scalpers also buy tickets. You know, way, way under face value. (Hey, you’ve got to get rid of that extra one.) They can in then turn resell them at a markup under face value.
@MissTicklebritches: “Every site has to start somewhere. Someone was the first person to order from Amazon.com.”
Well put…although I put googled “Bank of America” and the word scam before opening a credit card with them. Needless to say, I didnt get a credit card with them.
HAHAHAH!!! Has anyone actually ready their terms and conditions? I mean, seriously! In my opinion, It looks like their terms were crafted from the beginning as nothing more than a way to defraud consumers. I work for a major law firm outside of NYC and some of the other attorneys and I are getting quite a laugh from this. One of the bull dogs here even considered purchasing from them hoping they would be stupid enough to litigate. These people need to be shut down.
I think that the Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez would love to hear about this. I belive the Justice Department might like a lick at it too, while you’re at it, cc a copy to your AG as the crime was also commited in your state.
[ag.state.nv.us]
yeah this guy has a crappy rep with brokers too. There are a few good ones out there. Basically yes sometimes you can get tickets at a good bargin if you wait. Tickets are alot like stocks. Stocks are never worth as much as when they IPO (usually).
What you have to remember about using a broker is you get what you pay for. I have been doing this for 15 years and support a family of 4 doing it. My clients dont get a $10 an hour order taker when they order from me. They get someone that is going to take care of them. Someone that is going to make sure that they get a ticket that is going to be memorable. I want you to come back and tell me that the event was awesome!
As to the comment that brokers get their tickets at less than face value? DEFINATELY FALSE. Season ticket holders charge us alot more than face value for their tickets. More often than not they are trying to make up the cost of a season ticket off 1 or 2 games.
Just remember that 50 yard line ticket or the front row center ticket is privilage not a right.
I would think they are in violation of their credit card merchant agreement, if they really even have one, which does not allow charging the card until the item is shipped. Visa/Mc should be going after them, especially if all their customers do a chargeback.
@BuddyGuyMontag: Yes scalping is a scam. Tickets should not be able to be bought and resold for profit. Venues should offer a way to put your tickets up for a resale if you find out you cannot use them. That way someone else can buy them at face value from the venue. If no one buys them, you lose your money. The venue doesn’t have to treat it as a refund unless the ticket can be resold. It’s much better than allowing no refunds and forcing people to scalp.
Posting a shady site’s domain registration is all well and good. But to really raise their pucker factor, you need to list their Agent for Service of Process. Simply asking a corporation who their agent for service is will send icy lawsuity chills down their nefarious spines. And they have to tell you, if they don’t it’s a violation that can lose them their license to do business in your state. But knowing it in advance at least lets you know if they lie, and verifying it with them, instead of merely asking for the data, is very effective…
Looking them up reveals that TicketsMyWay.com is owned by Event Tickets LLC, which in turn is registered as a corporation in the state of Nevada. It is interesting to note though, that the corporation actually resides in Delaware, but since Delaware charges for corporation lookups online, I’m not going that far in my search.
Here is their Delaware corporate ID number:
4281320
Here is their Nevada corporate ID number:
E0056692007-8
Their corporate officer of record is:
Curtis M. Gebers, Manager
3131 Meade Ave, Suite C
Las Vegas, NV 89102
Their agent for service is:
John Dacorsi
10080W ALTA DR STE 120
Las Vegas, NV 89145
A Google search done on Mr. Gebers has turned up his home address. Not that I’d post it on a well-read website such as this one. Just saying.
@BuddyGuyMontag: Fail.
Scalping is not supply and demand, because scalpers themselves artificially reduce supply by using shady tactics to snatch up all available tickets. If every single scalper disappeared tomorrow, there would be thousands of tickets still available to the general public at normal on-sales. No more shows selling out within 2 minutes.
If your company makes ticket master look good, shoot yourself in the face.
@BuddyGuyMontag: From the transactions I’ve had with them so far, Stubhub is the real deal.
This is interesting. Michael Mead of TicketsMyWay replies on Ripoff Report to one customer’s complaint:
Ticketsmyway.com – The Only Way to Go when You Need Tickets! Ticketsmyway.com is not affiliated with Headliner Tickets
Dear Reader,
You may be alarmed by some of the things you have read on this site concerning Ticketsmyway.com and there may have been good reason for the people to post the complaints that they did several years ago. What you should know is that Headliner Tickets (the Company that operated Ticketsmyway.com years ago) is no longer in business. My understanding is that a company by the name of Pro Performance was paid several hundreds of thousands of dollars by Headliner Tickets for tickets in which Pro Performance failed to deliver and never issued a refund. As unfortunate as it I do not believe that it was the intention of anyone at Headliner Tickets to deprive customers of tickets or a refund but from my understanding when the company went under it was sudden and without warning.
I do from time to time hear customers concerns about things in which they have read on this site. I understand the internet is not always a place of comfort for people and when people read reports of scams and rip offs then they generally do not shop with the company in question.
My company is scrutinized by the world when they come across the articles on this site. It is something we knew was possible when taking on the domain name for our website. Given another chance to choose a domain name and I am not sure the decision would have been the same. However, I do know that we would have still done everything within our means to provide quality products and customer service. As with anything in this world I am not proclaiming that we never make a mistake. I can tell you that if a mistake is made we will anything within our means to make it right.
I hope this answers some questions and concerns that some may have. If you have anything else that you would like answered then feel free to email me at Michael [at] Ticketsmyway.com.
I would love the opportunity to earn your business and hope you have a nice day.
Michael Mead
Haha, what is with this site? I clicked on gift certificates ([ticketsmyway.com]) and got this:
This company spends a lot of money on advertising and is interested in stopping the suspected click fraud. We know how to stop the average person from running our bill up. What we don’t know is if you are smarter or dumber then the average person. $300 goes to you if we can not detect your strategy.
If you think you can slip through undetected then call 702-358-8754. Remember you must be able to prove that you were successful, more importantly we want to know how to protect ourselves from your methods. This is not a job offer nor do we really care if the rest of the world partakes in the click fraud thing. We simply want to know how to stop it from happening to us.
it would be interesting to see the attorney generals take on this company
@latemodel: I was looking for something about “charging before shipping” on the Visa merchant agreement but can’t find it. Can you provide a link?
@vision4bg: Somehow, I imagine that they’re not actually interested in stopping click fraud; they’re interested in unstoppable click fraud.
@katylostherart: As a FedEx employee, I’m going to have to say that that is not true. Haha.
@vision4bg: after reading that big bowl of nonsense i now have come to believe that yes, i am dumber than the average person.
@asynja: The only officer listed is one guy…CURTIS M. GEBERS.
He sounds like a charming fellow.
funny, i just went on to their site to look for tickets figuring that either i could see a show or enjoy a little pro se legal reparte with them and it seems as if there are no tickets for sale for anything. maybe they got wise and pulled down all their tickets for sale after the extra attention?
If they don’t deliver the tickets, you don’t have to pay. They will lose the charge back every time.
They have nothing in court, so let them sue you.
This company makes money on people who are scared uninformed or uninterested in fighting to get their money back. They are clearly professionals at “what they do” and they will probably now disappear as “TicketsMyWay” and resurface with another name.
It must be frustrating for the Las Vegas District Attorney’s office…
3-4 people need to sue Charlie and company in small claims court in their own jurisdiction….
Last I checked there’s a big difference between some asshat’s lawyer sending you a letter THREATENING to sue you and an actual court summons which are only delivered by some tracable means. If you receive such letters, it’s probably a good idea to retain an attourney and send that correspondence to him. Sometimes receiving a letter back from an attourney is enough to make them STFU.
I originally submitted this complaint to theconsumerist and I am sooooo grateful that they published this page.
I contacted (emails, phone calls, faxes, filings, etc.) everybody and their mother who would listen to me including the BBB, Navada ASG, FBI Internet Crime Bureau, FTC, suppliers and other online customers who’d been scammed. I even found out the name of the company that provided the software TMW was using to run their site. I complained to EVERYONE, and guess what?! Amazingly, I got somewhere. Within two days of them scamming us, their site was shut down. Nine days later they are still not in business. They have “zero inventory” for sale. I was happy to find that hard work does really pay off, and that they are no longer able to defraud innocent consumers. I just hope it lasts.
I also found out that the “lawsuit” papers they were sending to all customers who were requesting chargebacks from their credit card companies (after never receiving tickets) were fakes. They scanned letterhead from the Clark County Courthouse in Las Vegas and pdf’d fake documents. Furthermore, I was told by the Courthouse that small claims cases can be only be brought against a person who is domiciled or runs a business in South Las Vegas. This is also clearly stated on their website.
ticketsmyway.com has now morphed into onthegotickets.com. please do not use them. read up on the various consumer complaint websites how they literally stole from hundreds of innocent people.
[www.pissedconsumer.com]
@noscamsplease: this shows TMW’s newest scam of trying to extort $125 from innocent consumers JUST so TMW will leave them alone.
In case you were interested, this is where their “offices” are:
[maps.google.com]
This brings up the “street view” and you can see the office building, 3131 Meade Ave.
ooooh, looks Klassy.