Live Nation outchea scamming?
Ticket Master is being accused of changing it's refund policy to deny customers refunds on postponed shows. According to Huffpost.com, the class action lawsuit accuses the company of retroactively changing it's policy in the wake of COVID-19. The company owned by Live Nation, denies that the policy changed but rather “the new language was simply a clarification of the way it's always been.” The company's president also recently announced that live events will likely be postponed until at least Fall of 2021. As of now customer may only receive a refund if an event is directly canceled by the event organizers.
The company offers customers the ability to resale tickets through the Ticketmaster.com website but says refunds are not allowed if an event is postponed or rescheduled. This includes canceled shows with undetermined reschedule dates. The lawsuit claims that prior to the pandemic, customers could get a refund if an event was canceled, postponed or rescheduled. Digitalmusicnews.com has screenshots from the website that support the previous policy as the lawsuit describes.
One man Derek Hansen, is part of the lawsuit alleging that he lost $600 on two tickets for a Rage Against The Machine concert scheduled for April 2020 in Oakland, CA. He is seeking a refund since the show is indefinitely postponed. As of now he and many others are are demanding refunds with damages reportedly nearing $5 million dollars.
The company has been accused of practicing deceptive tactics in the past. In 2018, Live Nation-Ticketmaster owned more than 80% of online ticket sales which was a $9 billion dollar industry at the time. The website was allegedly redirecting customers to affiliates in it's secondary market, where concert tickets were offered at much higher prices. According to latimes.com the case was settled with the Federal Trade Commission in 2010, but that Live Nation Entertainment is failing to comply.
US House candidate Katie Porter of California accused Ticketmaster of “being in competition to provide the worse customer service.” @katieporteroc Tweeted that the company is “taking advantage of a crisis to line their pockets.” Many are following her lead via social media, calling for the cancellation of Ticketmaster and Live Nation as a staff, record label and as a crew.