Ticketmaster ordered to pay $4.5 million for misleading customers on ticket pricing

Remember earlier this year when the Federal Competition Bureau refused to rule on some of the Ticketmaster’s pricing practices? There was a lot of confusion on why they punted the case, too. That’s why today’s ruling (June 27) comes as something of a surprise.

Ticketmaster has been ordered to pay $4.5 million in penalties and costs associated with the investigation into the the way Ticketmaster sells tickets to the public.

This all stems from complaints that consumers were being mislead about the final price of a ticket. And we’ve all been there, right? When we log into Ticketmaster, we end up paying the face value (i.e. the advertised price) of the ticket plus a series of fees that add anywhere from 20 to 65% by the time we get to the checkout.

What’s interesting, though, is that we see the fees being added on the way through the purchase price, which means we’re not exactly 100% surprised when we get the final total. Still, it’s certainly annoying to end up paying a price that you may not have expected when you began the process. That’s where the Competition Bureau had a problem.

Part of the deal also includes a new compliance program that will apply to Ticketmaster across the country. Details on that–which will be created by Ticketmaster–will be revealed in the future. That will be interesting.

(Via Global News)