Free concert tickets may be music to your ears, but we found some concert goers singing the blues, holding on to vouchers from a court settlement they say they can’t cash in! What’s causing this “Free Ticket Frustration?” Hank Investigates.
“It’s Tom and Billy in the morning.”
This radio show host plays music all morning.
But at night, Tom Stewart’s into live music. He’s seen Matchbox 20, Billy Joel, Elton John and Metallica.
Look at all the tickets he kept as souvenirs! What Tom didn’t know was he may have paid too much for them.
After a class action lawsuit and settlement, last year Ticketmaster awarded Tom and customers like him millions of dollars in vouchers for free tickets.
Tom Stewart, Morning Show Host, Easy 99.1: “Sure enough I had 17 vouchers, each one good for a pair of tickets.”
Hank: “What did you think?”
Stewart: “I was excited.”
To use the vouchers, the instructions say go to the website and check for the qualifying concerts in your area. So Tom did.
Stewart: “Every time I’d go back and check for other shows, there’d never be shows in New England.”
So we checked the site for eligible shows in Boston. But it said no offers in Greater Boston Area or in New England.
We checked New York. No offers. Connecticut? Nope.
We looked up every city listed on the Ticketmaster website. No concerts available. Not one.
Hank: “How many of those 17 pairs of free tickets have you been able to use?”
Stewart: “None.”
Some music lovers did redeem their vouchers for tickets, but we also found complaints like crazy on social media, all asking the same thing:
Stewart: “When are they gonna have shows available for someone like me?”
Good question. We found right now Ticketmaster has stopped redeeming free ticket vouchers. The company says they’re figuring out if and when additional events will be available.
So are all the people who got vouchers guaranteed a free ticket? According to the settlement website: “No.” “Ticket vouchers will be redeemed on a first come, first served basis.”
That’s stopping the music for many concert goers, and one former Federal Trade Commission Official says he understands their anger.
Attorney David Balto: “Perhaps when faced with these consumer complaints, Ticketmaster will change things to make the voucher system work more effectively.”
Now Tom’s worried even with 17 vouchers, he’ll be singing the blues.
Stewart: “I’m starting to feel like these vouchers are never gonna get used.”
Ticketmaster says you can sign up to get email alerts if new concerts are available but they warn you might not get the email before those tickets are gone.
To sign up for email alerts click here:
https://secure.gcginc.com/tkm/SubscriptionSignup.aspx
To learn more about the settlement, click here:
http://help.ticketmaster.com/schlesinger-v-ticketmaster-class-action-settlement-faqs/
http://www.ticketfeelitigation.com/index
The discounts for $2.25 off a ticket and $5.00 off a UPS delivery can be used for shows on the Ticketmaster website:
http://concerts.livenation.com/microsite/settlement
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