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.. File your review. SeatGeek didnt immediately return a request for comment. . Buffalo prevailed, to Penders delight. One of these companies, Ryadd, set up a site that impersonated New Yorks Radio City Music Hall with a copycat URL, radiocity.musichall-ny.com; images of the marquee; and the name Radio City Music Hall splashed across its homepage in bold text. About SeatGeek. A lawsuit against TicketNetwork, filed by then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood in 2018, detailed the scope of speculative selling on its platform. Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program. Still, if you provide detailed information, including . If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately. I had other friends that were doing it with a group. Nobody I knew got tickets.. Log in A few days later, TicketNetworks legal team fired back, claiming that shed failed to notice a disclosure on the sites homepage indicating it was a resale marketplace. The site, TicketNetwork added, did not act as a primary sale box office, though its URL was boxoffice-tickets.com and featured Wilson Center event listings, a seating chart and Google Maps directions to the theater. |. Photo by DaShaunae Marisa for Reveal. All Rights Reserved. Required fields are marked *. Yet the company abandoned the experiment the following year after it hurt the bottom line: Because competitors elsewhere continued advertising lower prices and tacking on fees later, prospective ticket buyers perceived StubHubs efforts to be more transparent as a naked attempt to rip them off. TicketNetwork would not answer Reveals questions about its relationship to tickets.jonesbeach.com either. Between Jan. 1, 2012, and April 1, 2018, consumers spent more than $90 million on TicketNetworks speculative listings, the lawsuit said. Some claimed theyd unwittingly bought a ticket the broker didnt have, like Corey Pender. White-label sites intercept consumers like Valentine who are trying to buy from a primary source. expected to be mailed out. However, this can result in some functions no longer being available. Federal Trade Commission warned resellers, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Vivid Seats senior director of public policy and community engagement, Michael ONeil, confirmed that the company has no way of determining which tickets available on its platform were purchased with bots. Sports. Yeah, lets go.. A former Bills season ticket holder, hed patronized sites such as SeatGeek and StubHub for years, both as a buyer and seller. All rights reserved. A twist of shock, then frustration, washed over the prospective buyers. In the midst of the greatest public health and economic crisis in living memory, defendant has sought to surreptitiously shift its losses onto its innocent customers, furthering the financial hardship endured by people across the country, says Traders lawyer, Nicholas Coulson. Who's crazy enough to start this website? I am being charged $380.97 for a base price$$$ what is a base price and is it reasonable? Nearly all marketplaces tack on exorbitant fees that can swell the total cost to many times the advertised price. 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 When she called a customer service line for answers, she ended up on the phone with a representative from TicketNetwork. You cant republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. Valentine filed a complaint with North Carolinas attorney general. If you are still being charged for a flight, event or service even though it was canceled due to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus public health emergency, you may be entitled to compensation. 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. You can contact our team of Event Experts from 9 AM EST - 1 AM EST by clicking or tapping Contact Support when viewing your order details in the Tickets section of your SeatGeek account. Click Accept if you consent. But four days later, as he was preparing to travel to Florida, he got another email: There were no tickets after all. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it. He manages Reveals Reporting Networks, which provide more than 1,000 local journalists across the U.S. with resources and training to continue Reveal investigations in their communities. Even that language The seller has not yet received your tickets, but youll get them before the event was misleading, according to the suit. Next to this language was a question mark. All vendors who sell on SeatGeek have a 100% guarantee, and vendors are required to pay 120% if a ticket is fraudulent. Stanford, who was caught in 2012, was sentenced to 110 years in prison after being found guilty of 13 counts of fraud. Why?!?! 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. The federal agency and 22 states responded, providing hundreds of complaints. Consumers educating consumers., Complaints Reviews Scams Lawsuits Frauds Reported.. I filed against them in Civil Court City of New York. 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. Pender instructed his brother to purchase them on the spot. On 09/27/2021 HIGHTOWER, JAMES A filed a Small Claim - Other Small Claim lawsuit against SEATGEEK INC.This case was filed in Escambia County Courts, Escambia County Courthouse located in Escambia, Florida. Ahead of a July 2015 U2 concert in New York, a single bot purchased 1,012 tickets from vendors in one minute. Corporate Advocacy Program: How to repair your business reputation. She hadnt bought the tickets from the Wilson Center, and shed paid a lot more than shed needed to: Two similar seats were available for a total of $168 on the venues official website. The Judge overseeing this case is Yarbrough, W.M. Drug Rehab Deception Addiction Treatment Industry Rocked By Fraud & Abuse. On 01/31/2022 Ashley Cancino filed a Small Claim - Other Small Claim lawsuit against SeatGeek. I purchase tickets through Seat Geek for a Harry Styles concert that took place on 10/14/21. 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. The SeatGeek class action lawsuit alleges this issue is a predictable result of the company's business practices. The case status is Pending - Other Pending. We prefer the following format: By Will Evans, Reveal. In the midst of the greatest public health and economic crisis in living memory, defendant has sought to surreptitiously shift its losses onto its innocent customers, furthering the financial hardship endured by people across the country, wrote Traders lawyer, Nicholas Coulson, in the Manhattan federal filing. . Last Updated on April 28, 2020 by Olivia Perreault. SeatGeek isnt alone; multiple ticketing companies have quietly changed their refund policies amid the ongoing global pandemic. Meanwhile, as the minutes ticked down in Baltimore, the Bengals hung in. Instead, she offered a rough location: South Windsor, Connecticut the town of 25,000 people where TicketNetwork is based. 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. 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. There are Buffalo Bills fans, and there Buffalo Bills Fans, and then there are #BillsMafia zealots like Pender, who invited 48 of his own wedding guests to a post-ceremony tailgate and whose garage has been converted into a Bills-themed viewing cave that Pender opens to the elements on frigid winter Sundays to simulate the NFL stadium experience. Ticketing technology firm SeatGeek and special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) RedBall have called off their proposed merger due to unfavourable market conditions. In the documents, fans again and again described encountering the very practices that enforcement agencies had sought to snuff out. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_4" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Please note: Top Class Actions is not a settlement Your email address will not be published. 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. Amazon N95 Masks. When they demanded to know the physical address of Ticketsmeters, the representative wouldnt share it. A 32-year-old software solutions director, he considers himself tech-savvy. 7,234 talking about this. By the 19th century, so-called ticket speculators who purchased seats to sell at a markup were so prevalent that they became media scapegoats. With 53 seconds left on the clock, they scored a game-winning touchdown on a hectic fourth-and-12 bullet pass. The FTC, for its part, blames staff and funding shortages for its thin enforcement record. 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. Trader is currently being represented by layer Nicholas Coulson. There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. 1:20-cv-03248, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiff also wants the court to stop SeatGeek from continuing its allegedly illegal practices. SeatGeek on Twitter: "What happens to your ticket if an event has been . His beloved Buffalo Bills had a chance to do something they hadnt done in 17 bedraggled, mismanaged years: clinch a playoff berth. If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org. Repackaged from Purchased from Amazon, stealing all certifications and false manufacturing markers from the packaging of NB food supplements. Sold out. During this time, the company allowed brokers who'd successfully sold tickets to continue advertising those same tickets for sale - in case a higher bidder came along. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigations delivered straight to your inbox. The story was leaked last week, with Bloomberg . Copyright 1997-2023 Ripoff Report. I noticed immediately and in less than five minutes Contacted their customer service to . Trader had purchased two tickets to a now-cancelled Dead and Company concert in Chicago, reports the New York Post. The law made it illegal to circumvent the security measures that ticket sellers employ. 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. I felt totally cheated, he said. that reports on class action lawsuits, class action settlements, Largely because of the SeatGeek Buyer Guarantee, SeatGeek users are willing to pay premium prices for tickets, and to pay substantial fees of more than 25% of the ticket price directly to SeatGeek even though substantially identical tickets were available for purchase elsewhere.. Please enter your email address. Clicking on it took me to a separate terms & policies page, where TicketNetwork warns: Some listings on SITE may only be representations of available tickets or an offer by SITE to obtain tickets and not actual seat locations or currently available tickets.. 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. Email us at hi@seatgeek.com. Several class-action lawsuits have been filed against ticket companies related . Scores were hit with hidden fees that doubled or tripled the prices theyd seen initially advertised. Its just a bad behavior, he said. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_5" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); @2023 Top Class Actions. 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. 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.. This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.. Vaccaro said in an interview that speculative ticketing actually helps consumers. A US SeatGeek customer has filed a class-action lawsuit that accuses the secondary ticketing site of changing its refund policy mid-way through the Covid-19 pandemic. 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. Legions of fans say the secondary ticket market is rigged against them. (Google removed these videos from the web several years ago.) ***** BONUS ALERT: Anyone can type in 411913 at this site and scroll down to Consumer Comment #62 at Ripoff Report 411913 and read NEW WORLD ORDER POEM. They still had options, of course. Once you complete all of the steps, we will send a fax to your bank . REBUTTAL BOX This story was edited by Andrew Donohue and Esther Kaplan and copy edited by Nikki Frick. . The suit concluded with a settlement in which TicketNetwork agreed to stop misrepresenting, directly or by implication, that a resale ticket site is a venue site or is offering tickets at face value. Today, the company maintains it has abided by the consent decrees terms. 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. SeatGeek as an app and platform to buy tickets is decent, except the fees are pretty damn high. 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To get our investigations delivered straight to your ticket if an event has been amid the ongoing global pandemic $. Get our investigations delivered straight to your ticket if an event has been web several years.! And in less than five minutes Contacted their customer service to in Chicago, reports the New York a!: How to repair your business reputation process your subscription snuff out, 2020 by Olivia Perreault being.! Is decent, except the fees are pretty damn high: How to repair your business reputation ticket is. Do something they hadnt done in 17 bedraggled, mismanaged years: clinch a berth!, she offered a rough location: South Windsor, Connecticut the town of people... Encountering the very practices that enforcement agencies had sought to snuff out offered a rough location: Windsor.