Brian E. Frosh
Attorney General
www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov
Attorney General Frosh Announces Settlement with Ticketmaster
Ticketmaster Agrees to Refund Service Fees Improperly Charged in Connection
with Sale of Tickets for Hippodrome Theatre
BALTIMORE, MD (June 18, 2020) – Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh announced
today that his Consumer Protection Division has entered into a settlement resolving an
investigation into Ticketmaster’s improperly charging consumers service fees in connection with
sale of tickets for events at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland.
Ticketmaster, a subsidiary of Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., operates a website through which
it manages ticket sales for live entertainment and events throughout the United States and
abroad. Typically, Ticketmaster charges consumers a service fee on top of the listed price for an
event ticket. However, when the Hippodrome Theatre changed its sales model to require all fees
be included in the listed price of its tickets, Ticketmaster’s policy enabled it to continue charging
service fees for the secondary sale of tickets (i.e., resales by original ticket purchasers on the
Ticketmaster website).
After the Hippodrome instituted its new policy, Ticketmaster added a disclosure stating that
consumers purchasing tickets for events at the Hippodrome would not pay additional
fees. Ticketmaster did not charge additional service fees above those reflected in the ticket price
for individuals who bought primary sales tickets. However, consumers who purchased tickets
through secondary resales erroneously received the same disclosure, yet were still charged a fee
as high as $31 per ticket. As many as 4,176 consumers who purchased resale tickets were
charged this service fee despite the disclosure. Under the settlement reached with the Attorney
General, Ticketmaster has agreed to refund all of the fees that were improperly charged to
consumers.
“We were able to resolve this matter so that consumers will get back fees that they should not
have been charged,” said Attorney General Frosh.
The settlement also contains an injunction that requires Ticketmaster not to mislead consumers
regarding the fees it charges, and Ticketmaster will pay the Consumer Protection Division
$25,000 for its investigative costs. Consumers should be receiving refunds directly from
Ticketmaster within thirty days, either as credits on the same credit cards they used to purchase
tickets or a check from Ticketmaster. Consumers who are owed refunds from Ticketmaster may
call the Consumer Protection hotline at 410-528-8662 or 888-743-0023.
