Ticketmaster Secretly Uses Scalpers To Scam You

Ticketmaster has been in the news lately and it's not for anything good. In fact, it seems that the live event giant is actually working against you, with their own scalpers.

I don't like to get too fired up about things, but the absurd amount of prices that tickets cost nowadays is already ridiculous, so what Ticketmaster is allegedly doing to concertgoers is in my opinion criminal.

According to Rolling Stone, an investigation by undercover journalists from the CBC and Toronto Star has revealed that Ticketmaster has "an underground professional resale program, through which it takes a cut of profits."

Basically Ticketmaster is running their own mob-style ticket scam racket.

The investigative journalists went to a live entertainment convention over the summer posing as scalpers where they were pitched an idea by Ticketmaster for a  Ticketmaster-owned, invite-only platform called TradeDesk.

So what's happening, according to the investigation is Ticketmaster is recruiting scalpers to buy large batches of tickets and then re-sell them to us with jacked-up prices through TradeDesk(which we have no idea is happening), all while making a huge profit from regular concert-goers like you and me.

"Ticketmaster gets extra fees from the pricier resale tickets on top of its fees from selling the original ticket." - Rolling Stone

What's even more infuriating is that Ticketmaster pretty much told the undercover journalists that "despite the existence of a Ticketmaster 'buyer abuse' division that looks for suspicious online activity in ticket sales, the company turns a blind eye to its TradeDesk users."

In the past, Ticketmaster has sued groups who use 'bots' to buy up huge amounts of tickets only to re-sell them at a much higher price, but that's exactly what it looks like they're doing themselves by providing scalpers with access to TradeDesk.

Talk about hypocritical!

It's like Ticketmaster is saying "how dare you scam people, only we can do that!"

If you've been to a concert or professional sporting event in the past 20 years, there's a good chance you've used Ticketmaster to buy your tickets online. It might be time to boycott the company altogether.

Maybe we go back to the days of camping out in front of the box office for days to be first in line.

Whatever happens the problem won't be solved until we as hard working music fans  come together and find another way to get our tickets and tell Ticketmaster we're not going to be swindled by them anymore.

Ticketmaster has responded to the story, calling it "categorically untrue," and you can read their full statement at RollingStone.com.

You can read the full original investigative report from the CBC at CBC.ca.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering Big Frog 104 does not use Ticketmaster for our events like FrogFest or Alabama in Utica this November. We use EmpireStateTix.com.

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