Sports. If republishing our stories, please also include this language at the end of the story: This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization. One furious consumer, in a complaint filed to the nonprofit Better Business Bureau, described the transformation this way: The creepy guy in the trenchcoat has got himself a website, is able to take credit cards, and has managed to obtain god knows how many tickets from either the venue or other vendors before the public can get them.. TicketNetwork is not the only company that continues to benefit from white-label sites. Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. Last Updated on April 28, 2020 by Olivia Perreault. Ticketing platform SeatGeek announced today that it had raised $238 million privately as part of a Series E funding round. You are free to embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines: Do not change the story. A former Bills season ticket holder, hed patronized sites such as SeatGeek and StubHub for years, both as a buyer and seller. The suit, which alleges that SeatGeek rescinded its money-back guarantee amid the widespread cancellation of live events, comes three weeks after similar legal action was initiated against ticket-resale rival StubHub, which is also offering credit instead of cash refunds for cancelled or postponed events. So many asked variations of the same question: How is this legal?, If we see the same kinds of violations from the same kinds of companies again and again, that tells me that what we have done so far isnt working, said Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, acting FTC chair. Top Class Actions is a legal news source The company has a valuation of $1 billion, according to the release. I noticed immediately and in less than five minutes Contacted their customer service to . If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org. The company admitted no liability. He also helps lead audience engagement initiatives around Reveals stories and assists local reporters in elevating their work to a national platform. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work with as many people as possible. document.getElementById( "ak_js_5" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); @2023 Top Class Actions. Once there, she selected two $150 seats and began the checkout process. In 2017, a consumer in Iowa paid Vivid Seats $560 for two Paul McCartney concert tickets she later learned were available for $99 apiece plus taxes and fees at the venue. Under this business model, the brokers and SeatGeek both make more money than if SeatGeek were responsible and held onto the proceeds of the sale until the event occurred.. Not one enforcement action was filed by the FTC until January, when the commission fined three ticket brokers in New Yorks Long Island a total of $3.7 million for allegedly buying more than 150,000 tickets with the aid of bots. IQ publishes a regular magazine, several annual reports, and a daily news digest, IQ Index. His beloved Buffalo Bills had a chance to do something they hadnt done in 17 bedraggled, mismanaged years: clinch a playoff berth. Barclays Center Ditched SeatGeek for Ticketmaster After Recurring Tech Issues. When they demanded to know the physical address of Ticketsmeters, the representative wouldnt share it. . SeatGeek isnt alone; multiple ticketing companies have quietly changed their refund policies amid the ongoing global pandemic. Reveal is a registered trademark of The Center for Investigative Reporting. Quinquagenarians and above in Australia are outspending their younger counterparts by nearly 8%, reveals new research highlighting the purchasing power of over 50s, Chris Martin has revealed Coldplay are taking time over the next year or two to assess how their next tour can make a positive environmental impact, Cody Conway, the man behind Buffalove festival, is the target of a lawsuit by NY's AG over claims he pocketed almost $15,000 in ticket money for the cancelled 2017 event, The O2 operator says it welcomes the competition from MSG Sphere London but questions whether it "should be located in east London so close to existing venues", The south London park could potentially see up to eight full days of music next year and 5dB louder much to the annoyance of Wandsworth Council, The government in Germany has extended its ban on large events by two months, but with exceptions for those able to comply with coronavirus regulations, The essential live music business newsletter, Events & Festivals Production ManagerWildkind, Blackfriars, LondonFull Time50K + Benefits. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Drug Rehab Deception Addiction Treatment Industry Rocked By Fraud & Abuse. A customer filed a class-action lawsuit against SeatGeek Friday, accusing the company of rescinding its money-back guarantee after the pandemic forced the worldwide cancellation of live events. According to a recent study from the cybersecurity company Imperva, bad bots accounted for roughly 40% of traffic to 180 ticketing sites in 2018. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Top Class Actions is a Proud Member of the American Bar Association, Various Trademarks held by their respective owners. He has not received any indication that this will happen. Decide which cookies you want to allow. "Mike". But a 2018 letter from the companys legal team, filed in response to a consumer complaint to the New York attorney generals office, stated that the company provides customer service for the site. IQs news, features, information and analysis is read by 100,000 professionals worldwide each month. Now its effectively dominated by software companies. File your review. Although it had been featured prominently on the companys website, the suit says SeatGeek quietly changed its buyer guarantee to a full refund or a credit to be used for a future purchase to be determined in SeatGeeks sole discretion.. This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 10/15/2021 09:41 AM and is a permanent record located here: SeatGeek is now the official ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball. Why?!?! Learn more about the cookies we use. Billy Beane-backed RedBall raised US$575 million in 2020 with the intention of acquiring a business in the sports, media and analytics sectors and agreed a deal with SeatGeek Im like, just buy them. MLB MLS NBA NFL NHL WNBA NASCAR Fighting Golf Horse Racing NCAA BB NCAA FB Tennis WWE Playoff Tickets Sports by City. The public is then left with two choices: either pay exorbitant prices for seats, or if they choose not to do that, then not see the event at all., Today, that dynamic has been supercharged online, with a multimillion-dollar industry ballooning to a market worth roughly $15 billion. Pender and his buddies, all avid golfers, were eager to attend. The way these systems are set up, you make a decision about what ticket you want to buy based on the initial information, and its a few steps down before you realize how much the ticket actually costs, said Anna Laitin, director of financial fairness and legislative strategy at Consumer Reports. Secondary ticketing provider SeatGeek has filed a $2m (1.8m) lawsuit in a New York court against ScoreBig, the discount ticketing. The FTC sued the reseller and two of its partners in 2014 for knowingly profiting from deceptive venue-mimicking tactics. The partners named in the suit had employed audacious methods to fool consumers into believing theyd arrived at an official venue box office, according to the complaint. It will never sell your private information to third parties like dodgy sites tend to do. Buffalo prevailed, to Penders delight. California, Utah, New York, Seat Geek or Uber Seat Tickets Was decptive..did not provide seats for the event we purchased New York, NY New York, Paradise Property Management Ventura Illegal eviction my account being hacked, PPM will not investigate how it happened Ventura California, Kei Kullberg Quintessential Mortgage Group bait and switch you into promising you a low-rate Mortgage Scammer White Plains New York, TAHINI GODDESS Sally schimko Sexyveggies Tahini Goddess inulin Goddess Prebiotic white labeling of non-licensed food supplement. Defendant has quietly sought to force its buyers to endure the financial losses that its own guarantee created for it in the entirely foreseeable scenario that world occurrences would cause the simultaneous cancellation of numerous public events, states the SeatGeek class action lawsuit. Near the dawn of the Enlightenment era, members of Englands upper class would send servants to hold their seats for hours before plays began. Still, if you provide detailed information, including . Please credit us early in the coverage. The FTCs 2010 warning letter made it clear that a failure by ticket resale companies to disclose when brokers dont have tickets theyre advertising as in-hand may be a violation of federal law. Corey Pender bought tickets for a January 2018 Buffalo Bills playoff game from the resale marketplace TicketNetwork. They still had options, of course. Venues, he argued, often save inventory for media, high-profile guests or friends of an artist a practice that creates an illusion of scarcity and manufactures artificially higher prices.. Follow the instructions from the chatbot. .top-of-article-prompt{border-bottom:1px solid #cccccc;padding-bottom:32px;}. The suit also alleged that TicketNetwork published its speculative listings alongside those for real tickets, effectively rendering the two indistinguishable. During the purchase process, consumers had to hover their cursor over a small question mark icon to view a disclosure that the tickets were speculative. All Rights Reserved. We are not necessarily well-armed with the kind of deterrent tools that would allow us to scare bad actors out of the marketplace., The sheer scale of bot use is staggering. A program that benefits the consumer, assures them of complete satisfaction and confidence when doing business with a member business. Hiding negative complaints is only a Band-Aid. Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting filed public records requests for 10 years worth of complaints to every state attorney generals office in the country and to the FTC. I didnt want the money; I wanted the tickets, he said. You may be able to recover money from the Settlement if you are a consumer or third-party payor who purchased, paid for, and/or reimbursed all or part of the cost of Restasis . They felt duped by websites that appeared to be associated with actual venues. The SeatGeek Ticket Refund Class Action Lawsuit is William Trader v. SeatGeek Inc., Case No. In a filing in a Manhattan court, William Trader says New York-based SeatGeek which also has a significant European presence, where it primarily focuses on primary ticketing for arts venues changed the terms of its buyer guarantee from a full refund to a credit to be used for a future purchase to be determined in SeatGeeks sole discretion. Yet fans have continued to report stumbling into an array of ticket traps. Consumers love to do business with someone that can admit mistakes and state how they made improvements. Celebrity Skin Cream wrinkle cream rip-off advertisements US Based and Foreign companies bilked consumers out of Hundreds of Millions of dollars over the past 7 years. The case status is Pending - Other Pending. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.. With 53 seconds left on the clock, they scored a game-winning touchdown on a hectic fourth-and-12 bullet pass. Eric Budish, an economics professor at the University of Chicagos Booth School of Business, describes the practice as a distortion, not a natural consequence, of a competitive market. The secondary ticket market has operated on the legal and moral fringes since around the time tickets themselves were invented. Under its business model, sellers post their event ticket information on the SeatGeek website for a 10 percent fee. Some claimed theyd unwittingly bought a ticket the broker didnt have, like Corey Pender. In 2014, the prominent reseller StubHub piloted a solution to hidden markups called all-in pricing. But, what I'm reviewing . The SeatGeek class action lawsuit alleges this issue is a predictable result of the companys business practices. Companies like his, he added in an interview, drive down prices because they provide ticket buyers more options. Log in Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. There are a lot of violations out there to investigate and pursue, and our resources dont even come close to allowing us to do that, said Slaughter, the acting chair. This story was edited by Andrew Donohue and Esther Kaplan and copy edited by Nikki Frick. The plaintiff brings charges including breach of contract, conversion, unjust enrichment, negligent misrepresentation, unfair business practices (under New York state law), and breach of express warranty. The Bills needed a victory against the Miami Dolphins. Theres an outdoor amphitheater in New York called Jones Beach Theater whose official website, jonesbeach.com, features a cartoon seahorse on the homepages top left corner. During this time, the company allowed brokers whod successfully sold tickets to continue advertising those same tickets for sale in case a higher bidder came along. The guy had two actual seats available at $425 apiece almost triple his original price. Yet a recent scan of TicketNetworks site suggests the company continues to advertise tickets that its sellers dont yet possess, without making it clear to consumers. The secondary ticketing site SeatGeek was hit with a class-action lawsuit over the weekend regarding its refund policy.. A customer filed the suit Friday, accusing the company of rescinding its money-back guarantee following widespread cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic, The New York Post reports. Byard Duncan is a reporter and producer for engagement and collaborations for Reveal. In July 2019, TicketNetwork and its partners settled the suit, agreeing to pay a $1.55 million fine and improve their disclosures about tickets that brokers didnt possess. Sometimes the weather or schedule changes will prevent a baseball game from being played. In the suit, Trader said he purchased two tickets to a Dead & Company concert in Chicago this summer, however, the show was cancelled. Advertisers above have met our About SeatGeek. Corporate Advocacy Program: How to repair your business reputation. Please enter your email address. However, this can result in some functions no longer being available. Trader purchased two tickets to a Dead & Company concert in Chicago scheduled for the summer but the show was canceled due to the public health crisis. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigations delivered straight to your inbox. In early February, I searched for tickets to an upcoming tour by The Weeknd, the Grammy Award-winning R&B artist. Discover events you love, search all ticket sites, see seat locations and get the best deals on tickets. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. This is a marketplace where its very easy to confuse consumers and give them bad information., In February 2020, leaders in the secondary ticket market were called before Congress to explain their fees. When I selected a ticket and began the checkout process, I saw an advertised price of $439 and a digital timer ticking down from four minutes. Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. Yet in the decade that followed, speculative selling persisted across the secondary market, and fans continued to feel deceived. This has got to affect other people, too. SeatGeek Stadium, formerly Toyota Park, in Bridgeview is the home of the Fire and the Red Stars soccer teams. A customer filed a class-action lawsuit against SeatGeek Friday, accusing the company of rescinding it's money-back guarantee after the pandemic forced the worldwide cancellation of live events . Additionally, Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster revealed that it would only refund customers for cancelled or rescheduled events, however, many postponed shows have no reschedule date in sight. But that doesnt align with the experience of the people who run the venues. Concert was in June 2020. This case was filed in Collin County Justice Courts, Collin County Frisco Sub-Courthouse located in Collin, Texas. Next to this language was a question mark. By submitting your comment and contact information, you agree to receive marketing emails from Top Class Actions regarding this and/or similar lawsuits or settlements, and/or to be contacted by an attorney or law firm to discuss the details of your potential case at no charge to you if you qualify. You are free to embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the. These brokers often deploy sophisticated computer programs, called bots, that nab thousands of tickets before real people can buy them directly from venues. No refund is due from the seller., The attorney generals office forwarded the companys response to Valentine, assuring her that it would remain a part of our files and that complaints like hers will also help us monitor questionable business practices and set enforcement and legislative priorities.. Terms and Conditions. Tickets are backed by SeatGeek's 100% buyer guarantee, and resellers may list tickets above or below face value. Say yes. Once you complete all of the steps, we will send a fax to your bank . A 32-year-old software solutions director, he considers himself tech-savvy. Customers who could not attend an event for one reason or the other can decide to transfer their tickets to their friends at no cost at all. If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting Digital Engagement Producer Sarah Mirk,smirk@revealnews.org. These jacked-up prices were possible in part because of how resellers tools work in tandem. (For example, yesterday can be changed to last week, and Portland, Ore. to Portland or here.). Want more Reveal? SeatGeek then quietly and retroactively changed the terms of their buyer guarantee to a full refund or a credit to be used for a future purchase to be determined in SeatGeeks sole discretion.. Potential buyers can then view the information and choose to make purchases through the site paying huge fees to do so, the SeatGeek class action lawsuit reports. . Click Accept if you consent. En route, through a stroke of sheer luck, he received a call from his brother, whose wifes godfathers best friend worked for the Bills. (Google removed these videos from the web several years ago.) 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