TicketsNow Settles With Illinois for $50K

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CN) - Ticketmaster subsidiary TicketsNow will pay $50,000 to settle complaints that it sold overpriced tickets to Hannah Montana and Bruce Springsteen concerts, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.

TicketsNow, agreed to pay the money, which will be used for consumer fraud enforcement and education, and agreed to stop operating any Web sites that have misleading domain names.

TicketsNow already has disabled more than 100 such sites, Madigan's office said.

"In the course of the investigation, Madigan's office determined that TicketsNow, which is based in Rolling Meadows, Ill., was operating hundreds of affiliated ticket resale Web sites with misleading domain names that incorporated into the Web site URLs unique names of local venues, sports teams or performers," Madigan's office said in a statement.

"The TicketsNow-affiliated Web sites failed to clearly state that they were ticket resellers and had obtained tickets from secondary sources, such as season ticket holders, event promoters and venue operators, in advance of the public sale. As a result, consumers did not realize that they were ordering marked-up tickets from a TicketsNow-affiliated reseller."

Madigan said TicketsNow deceived customers into believing they were buying the tickets from concert organizers and that they were paying face value for the tickets. Madigan said consumers were not aware of the markups until after they bought the tickets.

Ticketmaster claims the complaints started before the company bought TicketsNow in 2008. Ticketmaster has announced that it will display the face value of all tickets it sells and will let TicketsNow consumers know whether face-value tickets are still available from Ticketmaster.

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