The following is a story about how, in my opinion. TicketMaster used deceptive practices to get my unsuspecting mom to pay double for event tickets I had asked her to purchase online. This happened on November, 15th, 2008. Here goes:
Because I was going to be unavailable during the time tickets were going on sale (10am), I called my mom the night before and asked her to purchase them for me, knowing that she'd probably be able to get to a computer at the time. She confirmed that it wouldn't be a problem, and everything was set.
Now, at this point, I think it's important to note that when it comes to the Internet, my mom is probably not very much like your mom. My mom is very Internet savvy. She has been buying and selling on eBay pretty much since its inception. She does her banking, pays her bills, and shops online. She checks snopes.com before forwarding chain emails. She regularly books her travel plans and vacations via the Internet, and has been using Quicken for the family finances since it ran in DOS on our 386 PC.
At 10am, she logged onto the ticket master site using the link I had email to her, chose three tickets, and clicked the”Look for Tickets” button.
The screen that appeared contained a message that “no exact matches were found, but other tickets may still be available”. It did not say the tickets were sold out. Directly next to this box was a button labeled “View All tickets”, with seating information and pricing displayed. She clicked “View All Tickets”, was able to select the three tickets I had asked her to purchase, and proceeded successfully through the checkout. Below is a screenshot of this screen (click for larger view):
What my mom didn't know is that the “View All Tickets” link had actually redirected her to “TicketsNow – A TicketMaster Company”. This is actually a “ticket broker” site that resells tickets. It was never clearly indicated that a redirect was happening, and (hastily trying to secure tickets) she continued the checkout via TicketsNow (which has the TicketMaster brand), overpaying by $40 per ticket.
Now I understand that the responsibility is on us to be savvy consumers, but it was obvious to me that TicketMaster had purposely established what web developers call a “goal funnel” in order to direct people to TicketsNow, where they can sell tickets at a much higher price. It's purposely deceptive, and they should be called out on it.
