If you have ever driven down route 84 West in Manchester Connecticut you have passed the TicketNetwork offices. They have veggie gardens and volleyball nets and looks like a damn cool place to work. But apparently its a tough little business that had some ‘splainin’ to do to the Federal Trade Commission.
In a nutshell, TN would make you redirect from a venue representing itself as the ‘official’ ticket seller for places like Radio City Music Hall. So the consumer felt they were buying direct but they were actually purchasing bumped up tickets from a reseller. Caveat emptor right?
The FTC claimed the heads of TicketNetwork “routinely misrepresented their resale ticket sites as actual venue sites; failed to adequately disclose that the sites offered tickets for resale and that prices often exceeded the tickets’ face value; and that the websites were neither owned by the venue, sports team, performer, or promoter, nor authorized to sell tickets on their behalf.” TicketNetwork participated in and profited from the misleading marketing by helping to create the ads, providing legal cover, and maintaining “the deception by defusing complaints and bad publicity, among other means,” the FTC alleges.
TicketNetwork Spokesman Darnell Goldson called the settlement “a positive resolution. We determined that a settlement was the most appropriate action to take to resolve the matter,” he said. “This decision was reached to avoid engaging in lengthy litigation, which would have been distracting, extremely expensive, and could have slowed our phenomenal growth.
“With today’s settlements, the FTC and the Connecticut Attorney General’s office send a strong message to all online ticket sellers that they must clearly disclose who they are and what they are offering,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “These are basic rules of the road for marketers of any product or service, and consumers deserve no less.”
Plus you can play volleyball on your break and grab some tomatoes on your way home- win/win!
