The attorney representing Arizona-based ticket broker eSeats.com in a lawsuit over an alleged scam of Vancouver Olympics tickets said the defense, Action Seating of Atlanta, is currently without counsel.
Lawrenceville, GA-based attorney David Will, who is representing eSeats in the lawsuit it filed earlier in the month, told TicketNews that he has no idea who is representing Action Seating at this point.
“There are no settlement talks whatsoever,” Will said. “There’s nobody to talk to.”
The lawsuit stems from eSeats, Toronto-based ShowTimeTickets.com and a host of other brokers being left without Winter Olympics tickets for dozens of customers because of their supplier, Action Seating, allegedly being victimized in a multi-million-dollar ticket fraud.
Action Seating, owned by wholesale ticket broker Gene Hammett, allegedly took money and orders for tickets but then allegedly had the money stolen by a foreign ticket supplier. In a letter to brokers dated January 29, two weeks before the Winter Games commenced, Action Seating informed the brokers of the situation and said they were not receiving tickets and probably would not be receiving their money back.
According to Will, eSeats is out $420,000 as a result of the alleged scam. The company began ordering Olympics tickets from Action Seating in December of 2008, and Action Seating allegedly entered into a contract that said it guaranteed “all tickets and will pay replacement cost if necessary for any tickets not delivered.”
Will said that after several attempts, he was finally able to reach Atlanta-based attorney Gordon Berger, who wrote the letter to brokers about the alleged scam, but Berger told him that he was no longer representing Hammett and Action Seating.
Berger did not return a message seeking comment. Hammett could not be reached for comment.
“I think eSeats and other brokers who were burned are trying to get tickets for their customers from alternative sources, but they haven’t been able to locate any,” Will said.
In a statement, eSeats CEO Bob Bernstein said that “in the last 10 years in the ticket business, this is the first time a broker has failed to provide eSeats with its purchased tickets.”
