Ticketmaster is being sued for aiding scalpers, a practice they actively speak out against. Ticketmaster, owned by Live Nation, is one of the most prominent ticket sales websites in the UK and North America. In this class-action suit, they are being sued for unjust enrichment and unfair business practices.
Live Nation has their hands on initial ticket sales as well as after-market ticket sales. This allows the company to make a profit off of the initial sale, as well as the higher-rate secondary sale.
Ticketmaster has been offering software to scalpers known as Trade Desk. This software helps scalpers get around their anti-robot security to ensure that they can buy large amounts of tickets at one time, and will re-post the tickets to websites like StubHub automatically. Some of these scalpers have upwards of hundreds of accounts on resale sites. Due to Ticketmaster having a hand in both the initial sale and resale, they earn a profit off of both. And because tickets are normally resold at a higher price, Ticketmaster is doing a huge disservice to their legitimate customers.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation actively speak out about the implications and illegality of scalping tickets, however, they have all along been setting up backdoor deals with scalpers to fatten their own wallets. Having these deals set up creates what is essentially a monopoly in the market of event ticket sales.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation continue to deny that they have been aiding scalpers.
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Sources:
https://slate.com/culture/2018/10/ticketmaster-sued-allegedly-encouraging-scalpers.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ticketmaster-cheating-scalpers-726353/
Image:
https://hip2save.com/2018/07/19/ticketmaster-class-action-settlement/