Ticketmaster Agrees To Only Sell Tickets It Has

Ticketmaster has settled with the FTC over charges that it used “deceptive bait-and-switch” tactics when selling concert tickets, reports the Los Angeles Times. As usual for this kind of settlement, Ticketmaster admits no wrongdoing. For instance, the FTC noted that in one case “the same set of 38 tickets for the Springsteen concert in Washington were sold and resold 1,600 times,” and Ticketmaster waited as long as three months to let affected customers know, which is a clear example of not doing anything wrong.

As part of the settlement, Ticketmaster will have to refund overages for 14 concert dates, which may cost the company as much as $1 million. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said he’s putting all ticketing agencies on notice about the practice:

Leibowitz said his agency was sending out warning letters to 10 other major ticket resellers, recommending that they review their websites “to ensure that you are not making any misleading statements or failing to provide material information to prospective purchasers of tickets listed on your site.”

Leibowitz declined to identify the sites.

Ticketmaster, he said, “seems to me by far the worst part of what we found.”

“Ticketmaster accused of selling ‘phantom’ Springsteen tickets” [Los Angeles Times]

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