Ticketmaster Scalping Scam Tour

Ticketmaster Has Secretly Been Cheating You With Its Own Scalpers – Rolling Stone

 

The fees on that website are ridiculous, no surprise they would try to rip people off in more ways

 

The fees you "pay" to Ticketmaster are usually venue fees. Freakonomics did a good podcast on it -- I would link but I forget which episode it was. If your ticket was $25 + $15 of fees online, if you walk up to the box office, the cost is usually like $35. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely some shadiness going on, but I think Ticketmaster has taken a lot of abuse for prices set by the artist/venue.

Stubhub, on the other hand, is ridiculous with their cost structure. To charge the seller 10% and the buyer another "whatever we feel like for that event, sometimes in excess of 30%" of the ticket cost is absurd.

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think StubHub collects anything from the buyer. The seller sets the price of the ticket and gets 90% of what the ticket sells for. StubHub gets the other 10%.

 

Also, I don't have a problem with Ticketmaster or the venue charging fees, but I feel like it should be included in the advertised price of the ticket.

It will say tickets are $25 but it's impossible to actually buy a $25 ticket. If tickets are $25 + $15 fee, just advertise that the tickets are $40.

 

I hate this company so fucking much.

 

Not TM but I went to a show a few weeks ago and the price for buying ahead was 10 dollars with 13 dollars at the door. I ended up going without buying ahead and paid 13 when i would have paid more if i bout them online.

One of the things that piss me off the most is waiting for a concert to go on sale and then going to buy the ticket all excited, just to see that instead of 25 dollars i would be paying 40. That is bullshit and it always pisses me off.

 

This is the least shocking thing of all-time.

 

SH takes a % of the price from the seller. So if you list for, say $100, I think you get like $85-88 or something.

 

Stubhub does charge fees (at least for baseball games).

 

The amount of additional fees is insane on tickets here in the uk, but nowhere near as bad as I have encountered for things in America. When all things are factored in it usually doubles the face value of the ticket. The worst one I have had in the UK is £1.50 charge to print at home.

 

This is what I'm saying. The seller sells a $100 ticket and gets $90 while StubHub gets $10. The buyer only pays $100 total. Nothing extra to SH.

 

Great recommendation by the way. Listening now and there is some insightful information in it that I'd never really thought much about.

 

This is untrue. SH charges the buyer an additional fee. You only see the fee at checkout. It's incredibly deceptive. Directly from their website:

When you buy tickets on StubHub, service and delivery fees can vary depending on event and ticket type. You'll see a breakdown of the ticket cost at checkout before placing your order. Using a desktop or the app, you'll see the breakdown at the "Review and Buy" section under "Order Total."

My problem with them is that they determine their fee percentage based on the venue/date/popularity. So there are times you pay 10% as the buyer. There are also events in which you can pay 30-40% as the buyer. The seller fee is consistent.

 

I have hated stubhub for like 12 years after I got ripped off on a P!ATD VIP ticket from them and my “guarantee” expired the day before the event happened.

A friend of mine recently posted on FB that he wanted to sell some tickets on TM and they were trying to force him to raise the price above what he wanted so he gave up and put it there.

 

Interesting. This is new information to me, but I'm glad to know it. Thanks.

 

If you look on an event on Stubhub you can click on the filter button and turn on "view prices with fees" and you'll see the actual price you pay.

 

The buyer is definitely charged a "convenience fee" of almost 20-30%

 

Never realized that. Guess I've only used StubHub to sell tickets.

 

Yeah, I have had that problem before when trying to resell on Ticketmaster too. There is a minimum selling price they enforce which isn’t much below face value. It’s unfortunate when you’re trying to get rid of some tickets and willing to accept a loss, but Ticketmaster won’t let you.

 

If you buy tickets at the venue it's usually no extra charge, most I've ever seen is 5 extra bucks? In reality it shouldn't cost anything extra to buy tickets at the venue and it's gross that some do do that.

 

This is not true. I work for a concert promoter and one of the venues we operate is a Ticketmaster venue. If you buy at the box office, there are no TM fees, just the net ticket price + the $2 facility fee + the day-of-show price increase since the BO is only open on show days.

 

Ticketmaster? Being slimy? NAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

I think it varies. When I used to live by the Irving Plaza box office in NYC I would still be hit with a $3-4 fee per ticket there (as opposed to $12-15 when buying online) which I found to be super irritating.

 

Damn, I remember when Irving charged nothing. Live nation ruins everything.