A class action lawsuit has been filed against Ticketmaster and Live Nation, THR reports. The ticket sales and distribution company, which is owned by Live Nation, recently came under fire in a CBC News and Toronto Star investigative report about a program called TradeDesk. The program allegedly assists brokers in relisting and reselling mass amounts of tickets for a higher price on a secondary Ticketmaster site. A man named Allen Lee is suing the companies for unfair business practices and unjust enrichment over the TradeDesk platform.
The proposed class for the lawsuit is defined as anyone “who purchased a secondary market Ticketmaster ticket from a professional reseller participating in Ticketmaster’s resale partner program and/or using TradeDesk or a similar system operated by defendants, such as EventInventory or eimarketplace.”
“Have you ever wondered why Ticketmaster has been unable to rid itself of the scalpers who purchase mass quantities of concert or sports tickets from its website and then resell them for much more minutes later,” the complaint reportedly asks. “The answer: Ticketmaster hasn’t wanted to rid itself of scalpers because, as it turns out, they have been working with them.” Pitchfork has reached out to Ticketmaster for comment.
In the CBC report, a Ticketmaster representative told undercover reporters that the company ignores scalpers who circumvent the ticket-buying limit using bots and fake identities. The company previously issued a statement calling the claims in the initial CBC News investigative report “categorically untrue.” On September 21, Senators Jerry Moran and Richard Blumenthal penned an open letter to Live Nation president and CEO Michael Rapino asking him to clarity the use of TradeDesk.
