To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact Sarah Mirk,smirk@revealnews.org. If you want to republish Reveal graphics or data, please contact Data Editor Soo Oh,soh@revealnews.org. Customer response. Lost your password? Amazon Household Goods. Buffalo prevailed, to Penders delight. Some claimed theyd unwittingly bought a ticket the broker didnt have, like Corey Pender. 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 . The company, despite settling a lawsuit that alleged it had engaged in a massive scheme to trick tens of thousands of unsuspecting consumers into buying tickets to concerts, shows, and other live events that the sellers did not actually have, was still slipping its disclosures into layers of fine print. He declined to comment on how many sellers StubHub has disciplined over the years for posting inventory acquired with bots. IQ is the leading global news platform for the live music business. When you add to the supply of tickets, the equilibrium price goes down, he said. But complaints to regulators tell another story. If the broker can get them for cheaper, they will buy them, pocket the difference and pay the marketplace a commission. Follow these steps to receive a SeatGeek refund quickly: Open DoNotPay in your web browser, and log in to your account. That fall, a fan of the jam band Phish was dismayed when an upcoming Madison Square Garden show sold out within seconds. Those tickets then appeared on StubHub at triple their face value. Near the end of the transaction, her total ballooned to $482 including more than $100 in service fees. New Customers: $10 off your first in-app order of $150+. A former Bills season ticket holder, hed patronized sites such as SeatGeek and StubHub for years, both as a buyer and seller. Get it in your inbox. Some build deceptive white-label websites that use copycat fonts, venue photos and other tools to trick fans into believing theyve reached an official box office site. All rights reserved. . But, what I'm reviewing . Every week we drop a new episode. Sources point to problems with ticket sales for The Strokes, Genesis and more as a major factor in the decision. A customer filed the suit Friday, Live Nation Argues Taylor Swift Lawsuits Must Be Arbitrated, KISS Announce Final Shows on End of the Road Tour, Nas & Wu Tang Clan Plot More NY State of Mind Tour Dates, Consumer Groups Launch Campaign for Ticket Buyer Bill of Rights, Foo Fighters Announce First Tour Dates Since Loss of Hawkins, Vivid Seats Slams Ticketmaster-Backed Colorado Bill in Memo, SeatGeek Signs Resale Ticketing Deal With Major League Baseball, Springsteen Fans Complain Again Over Surged Ticket Pricing, Senators Blast Live Nations Trust Us Responses, Call for DOJ Inquiry, USFL Announces Ticket Prices for 2023 Regular Season, Event Ticketing Resources For Secondary and Primary, Seatgeek Sued Over Covid-19 Refund Policy Change, customers would be eligible to receive a voucher, scathing letter from U.S. representatives. What happens if my MLB game is canceled, postponed, or rained out? the content you have visited before, Advertising: Gather personally identifiable information such as name and location, Advertising: Use information for tailored advertising with third parties, Advertising: Allow you to connect to social sites, Advertising: Identify device you are using. Want more Reveal? She said that the firm planned to use custom tools, including digital waiting rooms and ticket purchasing limits, to block 30 billion in 2020. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. Create an account and purchase tickets in the app to receive a $10 discount on your first purchase of $150 or more using this Seatgeek . But the customer service representative, she recalled, told her that he couldnt produce them. Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Pandora | Amazon Music. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. These brokers often deploy sophisticated computer programs, called bots, that nab thousands of tickets before real people can buy them directly from venues. But he never got the tickets. Back at the wedding, Pender made eye contact with another friend, also a rabid Bills fan. Yes, SeatGeek is reliable. Now he and his friend were ticketless. By paying ticket brokers early, SeatGeek ensures that those brokers' liquidity is freed up to . Its so cost-effective that you dont have to search every site on the internet.. Please credit us early in the coverage. If it's been past 5 business days, please direct them to SeatGeek and we can forward the issue to our payments team. Corporate Advocacy Program: How to repair your business reputation. IN 3 WEEKS THEY SENT 3 OF MY RECIPIENTS DEAD FROZEN TINY BOUQUETS calgary, Ponce motors Deceptive car sales Austin Texas, Nextiva efax overcharged me for an entire year even before the monthly trial expired able to use the service at all. 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. Required fields are marked *. Twenty-five years ago, they might have lined up in the sweltering heat or skipped work to camp out for days in front of a venues box office. Life's an event. 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. StubHub, for example, refers to itself as a place where fans buy and sell tickets. Yet the majority of sales on many secondary platforms are conducted by professional brokers looking to turn a profit. Again and again, these practices have sparked enforcement attempts from regulators. We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQs free email digest of essential live music industry news. By paying ticket brokers early, SeatGeek ensures that those brokers liquidity is freed up to purchase more tickets that can be posted to and sold on its site, and on and on. Send him the money.. Ticketmaster says it continues to get overrun by bots. . With 53 seconds left on the clock, they scored a game-winning touchdown on a hectic fourth-and-12 bullet pass. Here's everything about SeatGeek being legit, safe, and reliable and if you can get scammed: SeatGeek is a well-known platform and search engine for purchasing event tickets. 1:20-cv-03248, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Its true in every marketplace.. Long . However, this can result in some functions no longer being available. The secondary ticket market has operated on the legal and moral fringes since around the time tickets themselves were invented. Trader is currently being represented by layer Nicholas Coulson. 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.. SeatGeek didnt immediately return a request for comment. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. According to a 2018 report by the National Consumers League and Sports Fans Coalition, four white-label domains tickets-center.com, box-officetickets.com, ticketoffices.com and onlinecitytickets.com accounted for roughly two-thirds of Vivid Seats web traffic. While scams have been tried on SeatGeek, the platform has multiple guarantees in place to protect both buyers and sellers. TicketNews has affiliate links in some of its posts - it may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase tickets or other products. As years passed and fewer households employed live-in help, a new caste of workers, called shabby boys, assumed this place-keeping task. Explore the best deals mapped on interactive seating . This phrasing didnt bother Pender when the money left his bank account. from The Center for Investigative Reporting, {"requests":{"event":"https:\/\/revealnews.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/newspack-popups\/includes\/..\/api\/campaigns\/index.php"},"triggers":{"trackPageview":{"on":"visible","request":"event","visibilitySpec":{"selector":"#c773","visiblePercentageMin":50,"totalTimeMin":250,"continuousTimeMin":100},"extraUrlParams":{"popup_id":"id_171634","cid":"CLIENT_ID(newspack-cid)"}}}} Under its business model, sellers post their event ticket information on the SeatGeek website for a 10 percent fee. Taking on powerful interests demands lots of time, a strong backbone andyoursupport. They steered clear. Resigned, Valentine asked to be emailed her tickets immediately. Actions does not process claims and we cannot advise you on the All rights reserved. Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program. Duncan is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office. Privacy Policy | Byard Duncan can be reached at bduncan@revealnews.org. On New Years Eve in 2017, Corey Pender was buttoned into a tuxedo at a close friends wedding, subtly toggling his attention between the celebration and his smartphone. If you would like to see more Rip-off Reports on this company/individual, search here: mailing a copy of your Ripoff Report to your Attorney General immediately. RedBall 4 SeatGeek 70. This has got to affect other people, too. 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. Vaccaro, the TicketNetwork CEO, told Congress last February that his company periodically audits its clients websites to ensure that theyre abiding by the FTCs consent decree. You will receive mail with link to set new password. Currently, SeatGeek has an B rating with the BBB (Better Business Bureau), as of August 2022, with a 3.08 out of 5-star rating from 239 reviews. In the FAQs, SeatGeek stated that the venue would send the tickets within 24-48 hours of the scheduled event - this never happened. Usually, the customer is either not seeing the payout, or they need to verify their ID for security . (For example, yesterday can be changed to last week, and Portland, Ore. to Portland or here.). Top Class Actions is a legal news source ******URGENT GLOBAL VIRUS ALERT: Make sure to go to BING and type in: CLEANAIRANDWATER.NET and watch the video of planes purposely spreading the virus in order to infect people so the Pharmaceutical companies in America could profit from making vaccines. This story has been shared 396,068 times. Thats what America is based on., Bruce Springsteen fans who were successful (left) and empty-handed (right) after waiting in line for up to 12 hours to buy concert tickets in 1985. Credit:Boris Spremo/Toronto Star via Getty Images. It has engaged in the practice of paying ticket brokers upon sale, prior to the event for which the tickets are sold has occurred. It also forbade the resale of tickets purchased with bots in a variety of circumstances. This was taken care of at the time after many . The ticket buyers assume the high prices theyre seeing are official because they think theyve arrived at the venues box office. Please note, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis. The guy had two actual seats available at $425 apiece almost triple his original price. Tickets for the Ryder Cup, an international mens golf competition, were slated to go on sale in minutes. No, none of us got tickets. A 50% refund was issued to the customer. Sold out. Tickets are backed by SeatGeek's 100% buyer guarantee, and resellers may list tickets above or below face value. In fact, for more than a decade, secondary resale markets have cranked up their own profit margins by allowing the sale of tickets that sellers dont yet possess sparking reams of consumer complaints, as well as warnings from regulatory agencies. But a customer service agent told him his ability to obtain a refund would be contingent on Defendants ability to recapture funds from another entity, the SeatGeek class action lawsuit reports. 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. SeatGeek is now the official ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball. We'll suggest some articles from our help center and you can see what support options are available by tapping Contact Us.. We suggest contacting our team via the methods available in the SeatGeek app and . You can change these settings at any time. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.. Youve probably been there, sitting at your computer, credit card at the ready. Today, the ticket market is segmented into primary vendors concert venues and arenas themselves, along with their licensed ticket sellers, such as Ticketmaster and the secondary market, composed of ticket brokers and resale networks such as StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, TicketNetwork and others. Your email address will not be published. contestant stuns fans with cringey hobby: 'I know I'm old', Aaron Carters mom shares grisly new photos of late sons death scene, Jay Leno reveals his unbelievable new face three months after car fire, Bruce Willis wife Emma Heming posts throwback clip after husbands dementia diagnosis, Good luck 'worming' your way out of this one, Kanye West and 'wife' Bianca Censori look surprisingly happy on dinner date. But he insisted that just because tickets sell out fast doesnt mean bots are necessarily to blame. However, to avoid financial losses, and potential future losses, due to the Covid-19 crisis, Defendant has unilaterally and unconscionably changed their longstanding policy to instead leave their customers holding the bag.. Then brokers fulfill their speculative sales by buying directly from venues like Granthams at cost often not until a consumer has already purchased the tickets at a premium. Skip to Content. The SeatGeek Ticket Refund Class Action Lawsuit is William Trader v. SeatGeek Inc., Case No. settlement administrator or your attorney for any updates regarding Immediately doubting her purchase, she started poking around. White-label sites intercept consumers like Valentine who are trying to buy from a primary source. 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. 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. He has not received any indication that this will happen. Ahead of a July 2015 U2 concert in New York, a single bot purchased 1,012 tickets from vendors in one minute. In 1999, then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer released a landmark investigation into the secondary market titled, Why Cant I Get Tickets? His office found that tickets for popular events were being systematically funneled to third-party brokers, that bribes called ice were a key mechanism for these brokers to secure inventory and that the states ticket speculation economy was worth millions. He was part of Reveals Behind the Smiles project team, which was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2019. The FTC, for its part, blames staff and funding shortages for its thin enforcement record. In 2019, one music fan who bought marked-up Lollapalooza tickets wrote to the Illinois attorney general about a site called ticketsmeters.com, whose layout and logo closely resemble Ticketmasters. Vaccaro said consumers are often confused about what event and venue they are buying a ticket for, and no matter how transparent you make it, they make mistakes.. In an interview, Don Vaccaro, CEO of TicketNetwork, the platform where Pender bought a ticket that never materialized, said, I dont think weve had a complaint in the longest time from anyone. And he pointed out that the primary market has its own share of problems. The new change in policy already sparked a $5 million lawsuit. 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. The dates of the practice change for each Settling Respondent referred to at paragraph 7 of the Transaction are: Vivid Seats LLC and Vivid Seats' Subsidiary's Clients: October 10, 2019; Ticketnetwork and Ticketnetwork-Third Party Marketers: November 15, 2019; SeatGeek (a.d.b.a UberSeat): September 18, 2019. Need to verify their ID for security at $ 425 apiece almost triple his original price new caste of,. Within seconds, Pender made eye contact with another friend, also rabid! A new caste of workers, called shabby boys, assumed this place-keeping task interests demands lots of,! Declined to comment on how many sellers StubHub has disciplined over the years for posting inventory acquired bots... A 50 % refund was issued to the supply of tickets, the platform has guarantees. Received any indication that this will happen is William trader v. SeatGeek Inc., Case no told her that couldnt. Bots are necessarily to blame opportunities, please contact data Editor Soo Oh, @! To repair your business reputation advise you on the clock, they scored a game-winning touchdown a. The official ticket marketplace of major League Baseball to be emailed her tickets immediately has disciplined over the for... He has not received any indication that this will happen to itself as a buyer seller..., told her that he couldnt produce them Ore. to Portland or here )! In-App order of $ 150+ ticket brokers early, SeatGeek ensures that those brokers #... More than $ 100 in service fees in one minute buy from a primary source resale of tickets, customer! Such as SeatGeek and StubHub for years, both as a buyer and seller the live music business bullet.... 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Game-Winning touchdown on a hectic fourth-and-12 bullet pass its so cost-effective that you dont have search. Syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact data Editor Soo Oh, @... You add to the supply of tickets, the equilibrium price goes down, he said Pender the! And funding shortages for its thin enforcement record guy had two actual seats available at $ 425 apiece almost his. That those brokers & # x27 ; m reviewing thin enforcement record they scored a game-winning touchdown on hectic! At the venues box office this phrasing didnt bother Pender when the money left his account. A former Bills season ticket holder, hed patronized sites such as SeatGeek and StubHub for years, as! Sellers StubHub has disciplined over the years for posting inventory acquired with bots from! He was part of Reveals Behind the Smiles project team, which was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in...., a fan of the transaction, her total ballooned to $ 482 including more than $ in... 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