Another lawsuit has been filed against Ticketmaster Entertainment, and its TicketsNow resale service, this time in connection to a concert by The Dead. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey.
In the latest complaint — which seeks class-action status, and specifically excludes the Springsteen-related plaintiffs –- Michael Kelly (from New Jersey) claims he:
attempted to purchase concert tickets for [an April 25, 2009] Grateful Dead concert… despite being on the Ticketmaster website prior to tickets going on sale, as soon as the scheduled sale time arrived he was informed that the tickets were not available and was rerouted to TicketsNow… there he was charged $177.00 (plus a service charge) for each ticket… the total cost for four tickets (each with a face value of $99.50) was $829.15. Plaintiff Kelly was not informed, and was not aware of, the face value of the tickets until he received them in the mail.
In the first case, two other New Jersey residents accused the two companies of allegedly manipulating the market price in relation to sales of Bruce Springsteen tickets. The two claimed they were wrongfully directed away from Ticketmaster to tickets on TicketsNow, which sold for higher prices.
The Kelly complaint goes on to say, “Ticketmaster and TicketsNow (a wholly owned subsidiary of Ticketmaster) conspired to defraud the class by engaging in an unlawful scheme to artificially and systematically inflate the prices of event tickets sold by defendants.”
The latest lawsuit also alleges that customers redirected to TicketsNow believe that they are purchasing tickets at face value directly from Ticketmaster.
Calls to Kelly’s attorney, William Mergner, with the firm Leary, Bride, Tinker & Moran of Cedar Knolls, N.J., were not returned.
The Ticketmaster/TicketsNow relationship has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, not only in the U.S. but also in Canada. Such investigations come at a delicate time for Ticketmaster because the company is battling to have its proposed merger with Live Nation accepted by federal regulators.
Last Updated on May 27, 2009
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this show was at MSG not the izod and it sold out instantly. izod shows never came close to selling out
if he knows to the penny how much he was charged how is he not aware when entering a 16 digit credit card number?
The FACE value is posted on the TM website prior to the onsale, so now it is TM’s fault that MR KELLY didn’t read it?
He must have been even more upset when he arrived at the venue to see that people couldn’t even GIVE the tickets away to the IZOD shows.
Yet another FRIVOLOUS lawsuit with no legs…..Just a lawyer who is dying to get his name out there convincing someone to tackle a giant.
David got lucky when fighting GOLIATH…the other 999 times, GOLIATH will win.
They never rerouted anyone. The option was there to click on to go to a secondary market.
His lawyer should tell him hes a moron.
The funny part is: This clown is a broker.
I’d say this lawsuit has about a ZERO % chance of success, and there is a 50% chance that this guy will face a counter suit.
TM rolled on the Bruce suit – probably for a lot of reasons that only their legal team could detail, but you can bet that they are on the lookout for additional suits. Rolling over once and sending a message to those that will make a decision about their merger ( Hey – we f’d up and are doing the right thing ) is great strategy, but they are not going to continue to say ~We’re still f’n up~…
The easiest way to stop a lawsuit from gaining class action status is to show that the complainant does not reflect the average – potential – wronged person. You can bet that TM’s legal team will quickly discover that this guy is a broker and therefor – should have known that he was being redirected to a site that sold tickets above face value, probably did based on previous purchases or sales there, and certainly does not reflect the average – potential – wronged person.
And lacking class action status, well – it’s nothing more than a small claims court action at best, and a frivolous suit at worse.