“Yikes”: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says

The Federal Trade Commission sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster on Thursday, alleging that the companies tacitly worked with scalpers to profit from jacking up ticket prices on the secondary market. As the FTC alleged in a press release, Ticketmaster's years of turning a blind eye to scalpers violated the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, costing customers "billions in inflated prices and additional fees." Further, artists' efforts to keep event costs low were repeatedly frustrated by executives' greedy bid to drive Ticketmaster revenue by reaping as many additional fees as possible, the FTC alleged. Rather than blocking scalping, Ticketmaster allegedly provided tech support to help so-called brokers exceed "fake" ticket limits that seemingly only applied to genuine customers buying tickets to see events.Read full article Comments