David Craig, on December 29th, 2012Apologies if you already know about this (IMHO) massive rip-off on tickets to concerts and sporting events, but I just found out about it. It goes like this:
I saw an ad in the Sunday Times for a tour by Bruce Springsteen. I tried to buy tickets at www.ticketmaster.co.uk as directed in the ad. Unfortunately every type of ticket was sold out. But helpfully, ticketmaster.co.uk directed me to another website www.getmein.com where loads of tickets for all areas of the stadium were available – at 2 to 3 times the original price. So I tried the other website cited in the Sunday Times ad – www.livenation.co.uk. Once again, all tickets were sold out. But once again I was directed to www.getmein.com where tickets to all parts of the stadium were available – of course, at 2 to 3 times the face price.
I did a little googling and found out that www.getmein.co.uk was originally a website where “members of the public” (actually, ticket touts) could sell supposedly “unwanted” tickets at whatever price they thought they could get. But the firm that owns ticketmaster.co.uk bought www.getmein.com in 2008. I believe what is really happening is that the firm owning the websites is creaming off thousands (probably tens of thousands) of tickets and then touting them through its www.getmein.com website at several times the real price. If they sold say 40,000 tickets at double the face value, they’d make an extra £2.5m from just one Bruce Springsteen concert.
Apparently, for a Rolling Stones concert, www.getmein.com was flogging £400 tickets for up to £15,000. Of course, Ticketmaster deny they are selling their own tickets through www.getmein.com. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the same firm also owns www.livenation.co.uk and the whole set-up is just a massive scam to cheat music and sports fans.
I wonder if Bruce Springsteen knows that this (IMHO) huge scam is going on. I wonder if he cares. I wonder if he and his promoter are also in on the scam so they too can earn lots more money. Who knows?
You can read more at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221371/Fury-Ticketmaster-directs-Rolling-Stones-fans-touts-website-charging-15-000-ticket.html
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