Richard Blumenthal says company acts like it has ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ as records show it upping fees to cut losses
Senators slammed Ticketmaster for raising ticket fees following a regulatory crackdown on hidden charges as revealed in a report by the Guardian last week.
The Federal Trade Commission last May began requiring Ticketmaster to disclose concert ticket fees upfront – a practice known as all-in pricing. The company eliminated the order processing fee it charged at the the end of a transaction to comply with the rule.
But documents obtained by the Guardian in public records requests show how Ticketmaster simply raised other fees so it wouldn’t lose money.
If I have to pay Ticketmaster to see your band play, I don’t need to see your band play.
The problem is that they also own the venues. It’s a vertical integration-style monopoly that needs to be regulated out of existence.
Unfortunately in the US, antitrust law might as well not exist due to lack of enforcement because politicians are paid off.
The comment you’re replying to is still valid. Will it limit your options of what you can attend? For sure.
The US cannot boycott anything, but if they did, the venue owners would fold in less than 60 days.
We’d need to get the people who can afford these tickets to begin with to boycott.
Ticketmaster simply raised other fees so it wouldn’t lose money
Did anyone imagine it would go any other way? That’s like:
The law: “You can’t sell crack pipes.”
The store: “I don’t. I sell flowers that come in a complementary crack-pipe-shaped glass container.”
Its not for weed, everyone smokes tobacco through a bong-- I mean a glass water tobacco pipe.
For a while there in DC you’d buy a $50 cookie and get a gram of weed free with purchase.
I think 50 for a gram is the worst deal I’ve ever heard of, that better be a really good fucking cookie
I’m sure a lot of that was the delivery fee.
That and they knew they could overcharge my white ass because I don’t know how to buy drugs.
Boycott Ticketmaster. Let artists create their own ticketing platform that they control.
If Trump hadn’t closed the multi-year investigation into Ticketmaster / Live Nation on a whim, what a clown fiesta
He was clearly paid off by them. Why else would he care?
That sounds awful plausible, but I’d like to entertain the possibility that he genuinely loves to make stuff worse for everyone.
I’m sure the browbeating will realllly help. Until fines hurt their profit in a meaningful way, they are just the cost of doing business.
You don’t understand, they were slammed.
I’m so sick of that fucking word. Just zero creativity.
Utterly devastated
Wow, weird, if only you guys were in a position to pass laws to make things illegal, and enforce said laws by directing men with guns to show up and force people to stop doing whatever it was.
Oh well, what are you gonna do, right?
Jump the fences for concerts I think is what we do here
“Our fingers can only wag so hard!”
Hey, now. Chuck Schumer is very experienced at writing strongly-worded letters.
Ticket master lies, steals, and cheats? You don’t say!
Looks like Ticketmaster didn’t
bribeconvince enough senators to see things their wayDidn’t have to. $500,000 to Donald was all it took.
I mean this was inevitable. Those idiots clearly don’t live in reality or they’d have banned this at the same time.
