A group of Taylor Swift fans is demanding the Federal Trade Commission investigate Ticketmaster for 'predatory' and 'misleading' tactics. Read their complaint.
- Nine Swifties have asked the FTC to look into Ticketmaster's ticket presale for her upcoming tour.
- They said Ticketmaster abused its dominant position in the ticketing industry to gouge people.
An activist group of Taylor Swift fans that united after the bungled presale for her upcoming tour has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Ticketmaster over its role, according to a copy of the complaint shared with Insider.
The group — which includes four US lawyers and a law graduate — claimed that Ticketmaster didn't honor its statements about who could access the presale or its commitment to let people who've bought merchandise from Taylor Swift's website get priority access to tickets.
It also claimed that users who did manage to select seats were often confused by the presence of "VIP" packages that cost hundreds of dollars extra and weren't advertised beforehand. Some users felt they had no choice but to pay for a VIP package if they wanted to see Swift, who last toured in 2018.
"[Ticketmaster's] actions left misinformed, frustrated and mentally exhausted consumers feeling pressured and tricked — all without any clarity on the product they were buying," the complaint said.
The complaint also claimed that Ticketmaster violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not making clear which seats were accessible to people with disabilities. Ticketmaster didn't respond to a request for comment on the complaint.
Tickets for Swift's "The Eras" tour went on sale on November 15 for people with Ticketmaster's "Verified Fan" status or a Capital One credit card. But many customers reacted with anger and confusion, saying they didn't receive presale codes they were entitled to, or waited for hours in digital queues, only to see that tickets had been snatched up for resale at multiples of their face value.
Ticketmaster said it faced unprecedented demand and did nothing wrong. The company implied that people who weren't entitled to buy tickets tried to do so anyway, and said that it operates in competitive markets and follows antitrust laws.
Vigilante Legal, the group that filed the complaint, was created last month to push for consumer rights and fairness, according to Jordan Burger, a US-trained law graduate who lives in Australia and is involved with the group. It's trying to get Swifties to file complaints with their state attorneys general partly because of how hard it is for consumers to sue Ticketmaster, he said.
Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation Entertainment, dominates the ticket sales market in the US. The company has said that it complies with the law, but the Justice Department said in 2019 that Live Nation and Ticketmaster had violated the commitments they made in 2010 not to abuse their market power.
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, have said the Swift fiasco underscores the need to reverse the companies' merger and promote competition in the live-entertainment business, according to Reuters. The New York Times reported last month that federal law enforcement has been asking concert venues about Live Nation's conduct, indicating that it is still investigating the company.
Vigilante Legal's eight-page complaint includes several exhibits: copies of a Ticketmaster blog post, a marketing email sent to fans, and Twitter threads and customer-support messages that they say is evidence of wrongdoing by Ticketmaster. The complaint claims Ticketmaster's 2010 tie-up with Live Nation should have been blocked.
"This is bigger than Taylor Swift," said Burger. It's about "putting the pressure on the government to do the job it should've done in 2010."
The complaint also includes Swift-themed wordplay, accusing the company of stirring up "bad blood" — the title of Swift's 2014 song with Kendrick Lamar — and including a reference to her 2017 hit "Look What You Made Me Do" in its letterhead.