Schelsinger v. Ticketmaster

If you’re like me and millions of other folks that have bought a ticket to a concert, circus, play, sporting event, Cirque de Soleil, Vegas show or other major attraction, you’ve probably done business with Ticketmaster and have an account with them. My inbox gets carpet bombed with their marketing emails on a regular basis and I’ve even tried assigning them to spam but they always seem to creep back into my inbox after a month or two. Hey, that’s OK. There’s a lot of events that I want to go to and Ticketmaster is the 8 Billion pound gorilla when it comes to buying tickets.

A while back there was a class action lawsuit, Schlesinger v. Ticketmaster, that claimed that Ticketmaster had been deceptive in the way that they described certain fees associated with ticket purchases. Two examples are ” that Ticketmaster’s description of its fees is deceptive and suggests that the fee for UPS delivery of tickets is a pass-through of the amount that UPS charged Ticketmaster for that delivery. Plaintiffs (Schlesinger – SHT) also claim that Ticketmaster’s description of its fees caused customers to believe its Order Processing Fee (“OPF”) was based on or related to Ticketmaster’s costs in processing orders, but was not based on those costs and was actually a profit generator which Ticketmaster required customers to pay.”

Ticketmaster has agreed to settle the case without admitting guilt and the settlement has benefits that will flow down to the individual customers that have accounts and that pay attention to the details. So let’s cut through the legalese and get those benefits.

The Benefits

• If you (1) purchased tickets on Ticketmaster’s website (“Website”) from October 21, 1999 through February 27, 2013; (2) paid money to Ticketmaster for an OPF that was not fully refunded; (3) did not and do not opt out of the Class; and (4) were residents of one of the fifty United States at the time of their purchase, including persons who placed, and then cancelled, a ticket order without obtaining a full refund of the OPF, you are eligible for the settlement benefits.
• You will receive discount codes good for future purchases of tickets with Ticketmaster. Each discount code is good for $2.25 and you can receive up to 17 of these separate, discrete codes. You can use up to two (2) of these codes on a single transaction.
• If you opted to receive your tickets via UPS, you will receive a $5.00 discount code that can be used on a future purchase. You can use up to two of these codes on a single transaction and you bundle it with the $2.25 discounts codes previously mentioned. That would yield a $19.00 discount on a single ticket purchase.
• Ticketmaster will also make completely free tickets available to certain events if they don’t deliver $42-45 million dollars in value to their customers. This is a little convoluted, so here is the precise text – “Under the Settlement, Ticketmaster will deliver a minimum value of $45 million to the Class Members and cy pres beneficiaries in the form of code redemptions, tickets and cash payments. If the Class Members do not use at least $42 million worth of codes, Ticketmaster shall contribute additional free tickets for certain events available to Class Members on a first come, first served basis. Ticketmaster will make enough of the free tickets available to make up for the difference between the amount of Discount Codes that are redeemed and $42 million.”

Get Your Discount

OK, so how do you check to see if you have an benefits waiting for you? Simple and easy – Go to Ticketmaster.com and sign into your account. On the left side of your account information page you should see a link that says “Vouchers” with a blue link reading “Active Vouchers”.  Just click on that.

 

Clicking on that link should take you to a page listing each voucher and their associated discount codes. (Codes not shown in image below.)

 

You can also sign up for further news and updates related to the settlement via the separate settlement site. Good luck and enjoy your discounts and free events.

BOTTOM LINE – Ticketmaster has settled a lawsuit that provides discounts and possible free tickets to anyone that bought tickets between 1999 and 2013. Check your Ticketmaster Account for details.