Attorney General Andrea Campbell said dozens of people reached out to her office to complain that they couldn’t get a refund for Friday and Saturday’s shows, which won’t be as long now due to the lack of openers.
“After hearing from nearly 200 consumers who were struggling to obtain refunds from Ticketmaster for Ed Sheeran’s shows at Gillette Stadium this weekend, my office jumped into action to demand that consumers be provided a clear path to get their money back if they no longer want to attend due to significant changes to the lineup,” Campbell said in a statement.
The attorney general said she sent a letter to Ticketmaster “demanding” that the company make an exception to its policy that usually allows artists to cancel or change their opening acts without having to provide a refund to concertgoers.
A few weeks ago I logged into my Ticketmaster account and was told that, due to suspicious activity on my account and to protect me from scalpers, I need to provide Ticketmaster with a copy of my driver’s license to confirm my identity or my account will be locked out. My account is over 22 years old and there has been no suspicious activity on the account. I contacted their customer service to let them know that I’m not going to give them my ID and they need to remove the requirement from my account. Customer service informed me that it simply can’t be done, once an account is flagged the only option is to provide an ID. I then sent them an email letting them know that they either need to provide me with what they consider to be the suspicious activity on my account (again, a 22 year old account that has only ever resold 2 tickets to a single show), or they need to remove the requirement for me to provide an ID, or else I will be contacting the Attorneys General offices in my state as well as in California.
I never received a response to that email, but earlier this week I was getting ready to draft my email to the Attorneys General but first wanted to get a screenshot of the message… and I was pleased to see that they had removed the requirement from my account.
Just to let everyone know, if you have an issue with Ticketmaster you need to ask them to fix it just once, then you can get the Attorney General involved. Be sure to include the California Attorney General since that’s where Ticketmaster is located.
If this “unfair or deceptive act” is a violation of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, why is Ticketmaster allowed to operate in Massachusetts with it as their standing policy?
The attorney general said she sent a letter to Ticketmaster “demanding” that the company make an exception to its policy that usually allows artists to cancel or change their opening acts without having to provide a refund to concertgoers.
Campbell said she told Ticketmaster that “unfair or deceptive acts and practices in commercial activities violate the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act.”
Now it’s cancelled due to “weather”
This is just Ticketmaster being Ticketmaster, but even so, it’s not going to do Sheeran any favors in terms of the maelstrom he let himself get pulled into.
