New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram has filed suit against secondary ticket companies TicketNetwork and New Jersey-based Select-A-Ticket for allegedly selling tickets to upcoming Bruce Springsteen concerts before the tickets were available. Also named in the lawsuit is TicketNetwork ticket resale partner Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. TicketNetwork is the parent company of TicketNews.
The lawsuit claims that yesterday, May 26, undercover investigators from the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs bought tickets for Springsteen’s upcoming Giants Stadium shows from Select-A-Ticket, Orbitz and TicketNetwork even though the companies did not possess the tickets, considered speculative sales. Tickets do not go on sale until Monday, June 1, and the companies could not provide the tickets at the time of purchase.
In addition, some of the tickets allegedly offered by TicketNetwork and Orbitz, through its Cheaptickets.com Web site, “do not physically exist” in the stadium, according to the lawsuit.
“Advertising and selling tickets before they are made available for initial purchase by the public is an outrageous practice. It is fraud to offer to sell a product that one does not possess, and may never possess, and I am committed to ending this deceptive practice,” Attorney General Milgram said in a statement.
For months, controversy has surrounded ticket sales for Springsteen’s current tour, which resulted in Milgram enticing Ticketmaster and its TicketsNow subsidiary to settle complaints over the way the two allegedly redirected customers from Ticketmaster’s Web site to TicketsNow where tickets sell at a premium.
Ticketmaster did not admit any wrongdoing in relation to the settlement, which has not stopped other allegedly aggrieved customers from filing suit against the two companies.
“We realize that the Attorney General’s office has been under enormous pressure because of the shortage of tickets created by demand for Bruce Springsteen’s shows at the Izod Center,” Donald Vaccaro, founder and CEO of TicketNetwork, said in a statement. “It is important that the Attorney General and the public be aware that event producers including Bruce Springsteen’s producers, have held back approximately ten thousand tickets from the public onsale and have not been forthcoming in disclosing this information to the public.”
Earlier in the month, The Star-Ledger newspaper reported that thousands of tickets were withheld by Springsteen’s camp and others for The Boss’s two shows this past weekend at the Izod Center in New Jersey.
“TicketNetwork hopes to work closely with the Attorney General’s office to ensure that industry transparency is achieved forcing promoters and producers to supply adequate information about the availability of tickets to entertainment events,” Vaccaro added.
In addition to the allegations, The Star-Ledger reports the lawsuit also seeks to suspend Select-A-Ticket’s broker license and for the company to pay restitution to customers.
Select-A-Ticket owner Tom Patania, president of the National Association of Ticket Brokers, could not be reached for comment.
Last Updated on December 10, 2015
17 Comments
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I will agree with you fully that the same people that use spinners and continue to do so are most likely the same morons who spec the market. But I am a West Coast Broker and see more inventory for my area as well coming out of NJ, CT, TX, CO, NY coming in and slashing and bashing the market, that the market gets flooded with garbage seats, that end up selling for below the face value. How does this help us? It doesn’t the same morons who speck are the ones who have ruined markets all over this country. They claim you do not own the market. I may not, but at least know my market better than you, who does not know the market you virus yourself into, comes thru and ruins any profit left in this sour economy, I would like to see TM and the artist sitting on unsold seats in the venue, let them hurt a little, instead you the fool that specs, ruins it for the ticket businesses that are just trying to ride out this lousy economy. We did not get bail outs, so stop bailing out on the prices so quickly and just get out of the market and let the ones who know how to sell tickets the way many of us have for years.
i used to make a legit living buying tickets on ticketmaster outlets or the phone or internet. til the scumbags who came in and started to use spinners to beat legit brokers. these are the same people who tend to spec on seats as they know they will get volume from past buying experiences. these same people put up tickets they dont have and then ruins it for the rest of us who play it by the rules.
if you locked up the guys who had spinner not just the supplier of the software but the people who use them as well you would see people from out west stop buying tickets in nj ny and steal customera away from legit people who used to make a living without “beating the system’ its criminal that when releases come out these spinner guys get all of the tickets.
this industry needs a major overhaul as im fed up and getting out of the business because of the scum who ruined a good industry.
the ag of new jersey should quit taking payoffs from ticketmaster and let honest brokers have a chance of what little market is left to earn upon. there was no fraud of anykind that took place no broker had an issue of non delivery thats where the crime is so let stop all this b**** and let honest brokers as britania do there job and sell tickets and then deliver them as promised
No reason anyone should have busted Super Bowl orders. They could have bought them at $1200-1300 a week before the game. Greed got the best of them, instead of the tickets going to face value they went up to $2000+.
Maybe these moron politicians should have awaken 2 years ago and addressed the trillions of dollars of short selling in the cds markets which could have prevented this major recession. These politcians are idiots going after the ticket business!!!! no clue
Ticketmaster should end their relationship with the secondary market? How do you suppose they should do that? They OWN EI and TicketsNow. And Ticketmaster Exchange is there own in-house secondary market. This whole lawsuit thing is absurd. The NJ AG is a MORON! What is wrong with listing spec tickets? If you cannot provide the seats, then replacements are offered to the customer and the broker pays the difference. What is the problem?
Seems to me that the real crime is when Ticketmaster holds back the “best” seats and they somehow wind up on TicketsNow. How is THAT possible? How do the SAME brokers ALWAYS get the front row seats? Someone needs to look into that. No one gets hurt when reputable brokers, who know what they’re doing, speculates on tickets. I have a right to offer for sale any seats I want. If I cannot provide the seats I sold, then replacements are given, which are usually better than the seats you purchased. NJ’s AG needs to take her head out of her ass and go after the real criminals.
If stock brokers and commodities brokers can do it with oil, gold and wheat why not ticket brokers with tickets.
“It is fraud to offer to sell a product that one does not possess, and may never possess, and I am committed to ending this deceptive practice,” Attorney General Milgram said in a statement.
I guess Milgram will try to shut down the futures markets next.
Short selling is needed in this industry, short selling by idiots that have no chance to fill the order is a different story.
TN/EI/SH should make guys post a bond if they want to sell short.
I think something needs to be seriously done to the brokers who use spinners it is usually all the same brokers that have fronts First15events(aka The ticket liquidator)look at Phish in CT. Cheaponlinetickets.com, Averytickets, VIPticketsource, Theatron events just to name a few of the brokers that usually always have fronts all over the country
About time Ticketnetwork gets sued. Its to bad Don Vaccaro has more money than he knows what to do with and he will just buy his way out of the law suit. I wish Tom Patania at Select A Ticket best of luck
No selling speck inventory should not be allowed or selling ticks they you don’t have in inventory. It gives everyone a bad name in this industry. I can only hope the scum bag brokers that think this process is smart will be removed. It looks bad on all of use who try and compete in this industry. If you wont to speck dont do it on the exchanges do it on your own website o i forgot you dont know how to promote yourself or your website so you rely on others to sell what you dont have.
how silly is it that orbitz/ticketnetwork and select a ticket who’s owner is the head of the NATB AND AGAINST SPECING! is being named in this investigation. Don’t the idiots at the AG office know that brokers/aggregators can’t monitor what’s in their data feed 24/7 and they are just an affiliates of the specking?. Oh silly me for thinking multi million dollar government law teams aren’t supposed to know the specifics of the industry they are investigating…..
Thats true but if companies like TN and TNOW don’t take a stand to prevent and remove these brokers we are all liable for their actions because it shows up on all of our websites.
SPEC Tickets should be outlawed by the networks and so should Ticketmaster’s realtionship with the secondary market, inlcuding EI, TicketsNow and Ticketmaster Exchange.
TNOW doesn’t care. In fact, I bet they WANT their brokers to engage in this practice so Ticketmaster executives can point to this practice as yet another example of why brokers are evil and need to be outlawed so TM can dominate the market. I am absolutely DISGUSTED by both Select-A-Seat (especially with its executive ties to the NATB) and TicketNetwork for allowing this nonsense in a time when the secondary market is being scrutinized by legislators with limited knowledge of it and who seem hell-bent on its downfall. The fact that they were even allowed to short sell tickets shows the complete greed and selfishness of both Select-A-Seat/NATB as well as TicketNetwork, who apparently both feel that a few extra bucks is more important than the reputation of the industry they serve.
why are spec seats so wrong as long as the broker fills the order? If the broker fills an order for fill in the blank lower level section row 45 with a fill in the blank lower level row 35 (10 rows better) and does it 100% whats the harm in it? The consumer bought them because they couldn’t help themselves they needed to be guaranteed seats early so they pay for that privelege….i don’t get why it’s so wrong….
big problems when you let people short sell. Just ask all the people that got busted on at this past Super Bowl when the bought udibz reserves from a couple of kids out in the heartland.
Could have been avoided simply….
I think if secondary ticket players had used the word ‘reserved’ rather than ‘buy’ for tickets not available for sale yet, this would have sufficed and they could have avoided litigation.
It denotes that the tickets are not yet available on the market, and the broker promises to get tickets once released.