taylor-swift-fans-sue-ticketmaster-fraud-after-fiasco

Taylor Swift Fans Sue Ticketmaster for Fraud After Fiasco

Ticketmaster’s parent company is being sued by Taylor Swift fans following the presale issues last month for her 2023 “The Eras Tour.” On Friday, attorney Jennifer Kinder told The New York Post that the 33-page lawsuit had been filed in Los Angeles.

There’s certainly “Bad Blood’ between the Swift fanatics and Ticketmaster. The plaintiffs in the court case alleged that the defendants had breached their contract, intentionally misled them, committed fraud, and engaged in several illegal activities under antitrust law. The plaintiffs are asking that Ticketmaster pays a $2,500 fine for every violation of the Business and Professions Code, section 17200.

The lawsuit pinpointed the “ticket sale disaster” that took place on Nov. 15 and Nov. 16 during the Verified Fan presale, which then led to the crashing of the site, as well as the Capital One presale. Furthermore, the suit mentioned the tour’s public ticket sale cancelation on Nov. 18 because of what Ticketmaster explained as an extremely large number of requests for tickets and not enough remaining tickets to meet that demand.

“Based on information and belief, Ticketmaster has effectuated this anticompetitive scheme by forcing fans of musicians to exclusively use Ticketmaster for presale and sales prices, which are above what a competitive market price would be,” the suit reportedly claims. “Ticketmaster has also forced attendees to exclusively use Ticketmaster’s ‘Secondary Ticket Exchange’—i.e., the platform Ticketmaster operates for the resale of concert tickets.”

These Taylor Swift fans refuse to shake it off when it comes to Ticketmaster

The people bringing the suit also alleged that Ticketmaster “intentionally and purposefully mislead ticket purchasers.” They did so by permitting “scalpers and bots” to access the presale. This resulted in more people having codes than there were tickets available. They still scheduled the general ticket sale. This was even though they knew they would not have enough tickets to meet the demand.

Jennifer Kinder, an attorney for the plaintiffs, elaborated on the lawsuit. “We believe that both Taylor Swift and her fans were hurt by Ticketmaster,” Kinder said in a statement. “Ticketmaster messed with the wrong fan base.” Kinder also noted that the court still needs to accept the petition.

A staggering 3.5 million fans registered for Swift’s Verified Fan program with Ticketmaster, the most in its history. Out of these people, a fortunate 2.4 million managed to snag tickets during the presale. “Even when a high demand on sale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty-handed,” Ticketmaster explained. “For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing). That’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years.”

After the debacle, Swift spoke out on social media by sharing a statement in her Instagram story. “It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans,” Swift wrote. “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties. [It’s] excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.”

Last month, Ticketmaster issued an apology to Swift and her fans on social media. “We want to apologize to Taylor and all of her fans. Especially those who had a terrible experience trying to purchase tickets.”