Ticketmaster: Or is is Ticket Scalper?

$46.90 for two $15.50 tickets. If you haven't figured it out yet, the math does not add up. It never adds up when you use Ticketmaster to purchase online tickets to sporting events and concerts. If I had gone to Joe Schmo scalper looking shady near the box office, I probably could have gotten those two $15.50 tickets for only $38, maybe $40 at the most. Instead, I got scalped by Ticketmaster for more than the legitimate scalper's price.

So how does a company get away with legal scalping? America tends to over-regulate so many things, yet monopolies and "legal" scalping business practices seem to get away with murder. Ok, maybe it's not that serious, but it still angers me and many others.

Ticketmaster has overcharged one too many customers, as is proof by the hundreds of other ticketing sites going up on the internet today with less "convenience fees" than Ticketmaster. To me, it wasn't a convenience to decide to pay that $46.90 price for two pathetic seats to an AHL game. But, I really wanted to go, so I had no choice. Not even the box office phone number I called could offer me any tickets, but somehow Ticketmaster acquired extras, in which I had to pay that extra convenience fee of $11.00, plus an additional $3 or so in a convenience fee to just print the tickets off of my computer! If this isn't legal scalping, I don't know what is.

I am going to go all cliche on you now and use the www.dictionary.com definition of scalping: "To sell at a higher price than the established value; To buy and sell in order to make quick profits". Wow, that sums up Ticketmaster right there!

Let us look at the laws for ticket scalping. For example, according to www.legalmatch.com, in New Jersey, tickets cannot be resold for additional prices more than $3 or 20%, whichever is greater. Do the math: The tickets that I purchased through Ticketmaster.com were almost 34% higher in cost than the original retail value. Legal scalping.

Ticketmaster undervalues their customers by providing a "service" for quick tickets at a cost: the cost of the consumer, the cost of fairness and legality, the cost of ethics. Do Ticketmaster a favor and look into reporting their services to your local legislature. The only way to make change, is to initiate change. We can move to erradicate this legal scalping service by pushing for better online laws to protect you, the consumer.