Some avid concertgoers may have received a mysterious, spam-looking email from ticketfeelitigation@tgcginc.com this weekend in regards to Ticketmaster.
The email opens with, “For each ticket order (up to 17 orders) you made from www.ticketmaster.com between October 21, 1999 and February 27, 2013, a settlement will provide a credit of $2.25 for use on future ticket orders. You will receive an additional $5 credit towards UPS delivery of future orders, for each order where you purchased the UPS delivery option (up to 17 purchases).”
Yet however spam-ridden the email sounds–it’s true.
Live Nation Entertainment Inc., which currently owns Ticketmaster, sells tickets online for a variety of venues.
Some of the profit was allegedly acquired illegitimately, which prompted a group of five customers to file a lawsuit back in 2003 in California against Ticketmaster.
We all have to pay “Convenience Charges,” “Processing Charges,” and other superfluous charges that have absolutely nothing to do with what we’re actually purchasing: tickets. But, according to the group that filed the lawsuit, these fees are falsely advertised, thus breaking California’s False Advertising Law.
The case, Schlesinger et al. v. Ticketmaster, is still being litigated as a class action lawsuit in which the class includes all those who bought tickets from Ticketmaster in the United States from October 21, 1999 to February 27, 2013.
So what does all that legal stuff mean for the everyday consumer? If the settlement is affirmed, the members of the class will get some type of monetary credit towards buying tickets in the future and monetary credit towards shipping tickets.
But this is where it doesn’t make sense. If Ticketmaster is being sued for breaking the law by profiting off of customer’s ignorance as to where their money is going, then why not just give the customers the money directly?
Well, the answer is simple: marketing. By making the reparations they have to pay for violating the law a credit, customers will be encouraged to buy concert tickets, and in turn, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., will profit off of the settlement.
