BAIT-AND-SWITCH. The FTC has settled charges that Ticketmaster and its affiliates used deceptive bait-and-switch tactics to sell event tickets to concertgoers. Ticketmaster has agreed to pay refunds to people who bought tickets for 14 Bruce Springsteen concerts in 2009 through TicketNow, its ticket resale site, and to be clear about the costs and risks of buying through its reseller sites. The FTC charged that Ticketmaster steered consumers to TicketsNow, where tickets were offered at much higher prices – in some cases quadruple the face value. According to the FTC, Ticketmaster also didn’t tell buyers that many of the resale tickets advertised on TicketsNow.com were not actual tickets secured for sale at the time they were listed and bought. Ticketmaster kept the sales proceeds for more than three months without a reasonable basis for believing it could fulfill the orders. Read the press release.
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