NBC CT Responds investigates and learns what fans of all genres of music need to watch out for when buying concert tickets.
A Burlington man spent thousands of dollars on Taylor Swift tickets for his girlfriend.
They looked forward to the show for months.
But just days before the event, he was told his tickets didn’t exist, so he reached out to NBC CT Responds.
“On the Monday before the concert, I received an email basically saying they didn’t get their tickets, so I wasn’t going to get my tickets,” explained Scott Stanhope.
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In November, Stanhope paid $2,600 total for the two Taylor Swift seats during what he says was called a “pre-sale.”
He purchased the tickets online from “Event Tickets Center,” which is a secondary ticket marketplace where individual sellers can post and resell their tickets.
Six months later and just five days before the concert, he knew he was in trouble when he got an email saying, “Due to the unanticipated development of the ticket marketplace for the Eras Tour, the ticket provider was unable to complete the delivery of the tickets…”
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“What was that like breaking the news to your girlfriend?” asked NBC CT Responds Consumer Reporter Caitlin Burchill. “I didn’t want to,” said Stanhope.
To add insult to injury, Stanhope had booked a non-refundable $450 dollar hotel room near the concert.
The couple still decided to make the trip from Connecticut despite the bad news. Instead of the concert, they went to a go-cart entertainment center that is down the road from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
“It wasn’t the Taylor Swift concert that we’d been banking on for six months,” said Stanhope.
In a statement, Event Tickets Center CEO Adam Young said in part: “My company, Event Tickets Center, has a commitment to 100 percent fulfillment of sales made through our marketplace. This seller has been blocked from using the marketplace in the future as they failed to meet our standards.”
Stanhope doesn’t understand why he wasn’t informed that the tickets weren’t available sooner. “Basically [I gave them] a $2,600 interest free loan for six months,” he said.
While it’s unclear who was holding on to Stanhope’s payment for months, he did get a refund from Event Tickets Center for the tickets and he initially was also offered a 50% voucher for future purchases through Event Tickets Center.
“At first, I actually thought that that was fair, but the more I thought about it being six months and letting me know right beforehand and also the hotel that I wasn’t going to be able to cancel, it starts diminishing that $1300 voucher pretty quickly,” Stanhope said.
There’s no question the demand to see Taylor Swift has been sky-high.
But to this day, Stanhope still just can’t believe the company didn’t just offer him other seats that were still for sale on its website the day he was told his tickets weren’t available. “They did have comparable seats, seats that I would have been more than happy to sit in and actually get the concert that we had booked,” he said.
It wasn’t until NBC CT Responds reached out to the company that Stanhope was offered a flight, hotel, and comparable tickets to see Taylor Swift anywhere across the country by Event Tickets Center.
He took a $4,300 voucher for future ticket purchases from their website instead.
While Event Tickets Center wouldn’t tell NBC CT Responds exactly what happened in Stanhope’s situation, consumer experts tell us one possibility is that it was a speculative ticket sale by the individual seller.
“What that means is that the person who was selling the ticket didn't actually have it in hand,” said John Breyault, the vice president of public policy, telecommunications, and fraud for the National Consumers League (NCL).
Breyault says speculative ticket sales are common, but a controversial practice in the secondhand ticket industry and are tough for consumers to spot, which is why the NCL has been advocating for better legislation, specifically the "Ticket Buyer's Bill of Rights."
NCL says there's not currently a standalone bill for it, the organization is supporting the "BOSS and SWIFT Act" and the "Junk Fee Prevention Act."
Breyault says, “We think that consumers deserve a consistent experience so if you are buying a speculative ticket, you should know upfront, have it prominently displayed that the person you're buying it from does not have it in hand and they may not be able to get it in hand before the event happens."
Right now, NCL says while some ticket exchanges disclose this, others don’t.
Stanhope said he didn’t read any warning about this on the website during his purchase.
Event Tickets Center’s terms and conditions say, “Some listings on SITE may only be representations of available tickets or an offer by SITE to obtain tickets and not actual seat locations or currently available tickets.”
“I always thought when you booked tickets, they were your tickets,” said Stanhope.
“Now that this has happened, it’s going to be a worry of mine whenever I book tickets: is this going to fall through?” he added.
What should you look out for when buying tickets online from a resale site?
Breyault says you should:
- Read all the fine print before purchasing a ticket.
- Be wary of tickets for sale without ticket numbers, which is what happened in Stanhope’s situation.
- Pay attention to any restrictions—can you resell the ticket if something comes up?
- Pay with a credit card.
- And look for tickets that promise to fulfill your order and give you the tickets within 24 to 48 hours.
