UPDATE: Ticketmaster Denies Reports Of Dodgy Resale Tactics, Launches Internal Review
ORIGINAL STORY: In an explosive plot twist of M. Night Shayamalan proportions, it turns out Ticketmaster may have been secretly working with scalpers to rip us off this whole time.
Damning reports from Canada’s CBC News and Toronto Star allege that Ticketmaster has been operating its own covert scalping racket.
Both Canadian outlets sent undercover journalists to the Ticket Summit industry conference in Las Vegas earlier this year, posing as scalpers.
It’s alleged that both moles were separately approached by Ticketmaster reps and briefed on the company’s dodgy dealings, which sees scalpers buy tickets from Ticketmaster, then resell them at a higher price on Ticketmaster’s own secondary market platform, TradeDesk.
It means the company gets to profit twice from ticket sales, first from the fees of the initial sale to the scalpers, then again on the fees racked up during the pricier resale transactions made on TradeDesk.
These are mind-blowing allegations from a company that has historically taken a strong public stance against scalping. On paper, Ticketmaster have outlined strict ticket purchasing limits for customers in their terms & conditions, they have compelled governments to outlaw scalping and have even sued online ticket brokers for using bots.
Ticketmaster has yet to issue a public statement on these allegations.
However, the company has written to one of the accusing outlets CBC News, saying “that as the world’s leading ticketing platform, representing thousands of teams, artists and venues, we believe it is our job to offer a marketplace that provides a safe and fair place for fans to shop, buy and sell tickets in both the primary and secondary markets.”
Watch the Canadian journalists’ undercover footage below.
