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I'd also like to highlight another bad practice by Ticketmaster. When you purchase a ticket from them and resell it on their marketplace, once someone purchase

I'd also like to highlight another bad practice by Ticketmaster. When you purchase a ticket from them and resell it on their marketplace, once someone purchases it, they(Ticketmaster) hold your funds and only give you the money ~7-14 business days after the event is over. They say this is to verify the validity of the ticket. On the buyer side, you purchase the ticket from the marketplace and it gets added to your account immediately. (I think) You get the barcode some time ~1 week before the actual event begins. The confusion for me? Ticketmaster owned the ticket and all logic relating to the validity of it. The logic to validate this shouldn't be complex at all. They OWN the ticket. They KNOW it's legitimate because it never left their database. Yet they double dip and hold both buyer and seller funds. Events can be close to a year in the future but the seller won't see that until after that event ends.

babypuncher 2y ago
I really, really, really hope Ticketmaster gets broken up. Their shittiness seemingly knows no bounds.
tesrx 2y ago
Excellent point. I wonder if Ticketmaster profits by making interest off of holding those funds?
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  Wonder no more—yes.
  - ipsum2 2y ago
    Do you work at ticketmaster? Otherwise, how do you confirm this?
    - mixmastamyk 2y ago
      Every big corp holds money longer than necessary to maximize interest. It’s free money. We know TM. “Why wouldn’t TM do it” is what you should be asking proof for.
      - tsukurimashou 2y ago
        exactly this
    - passwordoops 2y ago
      Rule of thumb when it comes to monopolies: always err on the side of rentierism. In fact, it should be incumbent on their defenders to prove (insert greedy activity) is not practiced by said corporation
    - seanhunter 2y ago
      Ticketkmaster earns interest on cash they hold[1] This is cash that ticketmaster is holding Therefore they will be earning interest on this. [1] see interest incom on their latest 10-K https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/annual-reports/content/0001335258-24-000017/0001335258-24-000017.pdf#page32 https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/an...
    - fallingknife 2y ago
      1. ticket master holds the money for 14 days before paying the customer 2. there are a lot of customers 3. therefore ticket master holds lots of customer cash in transit (this is called the "float") 4. cash earns 5% interest so this year they will earn about 5% * avg float
bonestamp2 2y ago
There's another good point in here. Why do they hold the ticket until just before the event? I bought tickets to a concert for my wife's favorite band. Then, my wife's work scheduled an event for that same week and she had to leave town. So, what I really wanted was a refund so someone else could buy the tickets. They don't do that of course. So, then I wanted to sell the tickets for face value... but ticketmaster didn't "deliver" the tickets to my account until the day before the event! I watched for a month leading up to the event as the ticket prices plummeted while the scalpers were desperate to get at least something for their tickets before my ticket was even delivered to me. As soon as they take my money, they should update the database to show that the ticket is mine. If I want to sell it, I should be able to do that immediately too. But, from what I've read, that instant resale ability only belongs to their "partners" who resell a lot of tickets, and you need access to their "TradeDesk" tool to do it: https://tradedesk.ticketmaster.com https://tradedesk.ticketmaster.com
- mike503 2y ago
  This began a lot more on third party sites like stubhub due to Covid and the massive amount of cancellations; before most places paid out after the sale, and if the buyer wound up having an issue (due to the seller mistake, selling it multiple times, whatever) they would charge the seller and usually assess a penalty. But when everything in the world was being cancelled I assume they didn't have all the money just sitting around to reverse and it was a ton of thrash to deal with. As someone who had bought tons of tickets and sold some, it was a mess. I had a ton of credit card refunds back, the third party sites had to reverse payments, etc. Waiting until after the event is just less overhead. Guarantees the transaction happened without a hitch. There are some POS and broker sites that still pay on transfer, but none of the "primary" secondary market does.
- Ocha 2y ago
  Just vote with your pocket and don’t buy tickets from them. I do that - yes I don’t get to go to major concerts but there are still so much more that is not on ticket master. I found a lot of new entertainment and was happy to pay $4 fee instead of whatever TM charges nowadays.
cypherpunks01 2y ago
It's simply 0% financing for their business. No more complex than that.
patates 2y ago
Maybe to stop people selling the ticket and still going to the event with a pre-printed one? Solving that would also be easy if they have a central verification system (just invalidate the ticket and issue a new one) but not if it is all p2p. (disclaimer: I'm a complete outsider, last time I bought anything from Ticketmaster was a really long time ago).
- Phemist 2y ago
  They would need to solve that anyway in case 2 or more friends attempt to get in on the same ticket. Not at all difficult - simply share screen a third device and display the rotating QR-code through e.g. zoom on individual phones. For additional trickery, try to split the group into joining multiple ticket scanning lines and timing the scan of the ticket to be as close as possible to eachother.
krger 2y ago
>When you purchase a ticket from them and resell it on their marketplace, once someone purchases it, they(Ticketmaster) hold your funds and only give you the money ~7-14 business days after the event is over. They say this is to verify the validity of the ticket. I imagine it's more about discouraging scalping, regardless of what they may say about it.
garaetjjte 2y ago
Possibly it's fraud prevention, in case payment for the original ticket was fraudulent and chargeback occurs after the ticket is resold on marketplace?
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  That does sound like a very reasonable thing to do. Otherwise you have a threat vector of steal card, buy ticket, sell ticket, pocket the cash, card owner disputes, now Ticketmaster has paid a stolen identity who took the money and ran. Anything that can be used to monetize stolen cards will tend to be used for the purpose even if it's inefficient.
elcomet 2y ago
Because you could just print the ticket, then sell it, and still enter the show with it ?
- mmmlinux 2y ago
  This is literally what the rolling codes prevent.

babypuncher 2y ago

I really, really, really hope Ticketmaster gets broken up. Their shittiness seemingly knows no bounds.

tesrx 2y ago

Excellent point. I wonder if Ticketmaster profits by making interest off of holding those funds?

mixmastamyk 2y ago
Wonder no more—yes.
- ipsum2 2y ago
  Do you work at ticketmaster? Otherwise, how do you confirm this?
  - mixmastamyk 2y ago
    Every big corp holds money longer than necessary to maximize interest. It’s free money. We know TM. “Why wouldn’t TM do it” is what you should be asking proof for.
    - tsukurimashou 2y ago
      exactly this
  - passwordoops 2y ago
    Rule of thumb when it comes to monopolies: always err on the side of rentierism. In fact, it should be incumbent on their defenders to prove (insert greedy activity) is not practiced by said corporation
  - seanhunter 2y ago
    Ticketkmaster earns interest on cash they hold[1] This is cash that ticketmaster is holding Therefore they will be earning interest on this. [1] see interest incom on their latest 10-K https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/annual-reports/content/0001335258-24-000017/0001335258-24-000017.pdf#page32 https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/an...
  - fallingknife 2y ago
    1. ticket master holds the money for 14 days before paying the customer 2. there are a lot of customers 3. therefore ticket master holds lots of customer cash in transit (this is called the "float") 4. cash earns 5% interest so this year they will earn about 5% * avg float

bonestamp2 2y ago

There's another good point in here. Why do they hold the ticket until just before the event? I bought tickets to a concert for my wife's favorite band. Then, my wife's work scheduled an event for that same week and she had to leave town. So, what I really wanted was a refund so someone else could buy the tickets. They don't do that of course. So, then I wanted to sell the tickets for face value... but ticketmaster didn't "deliver" the tickets to my account until the day before the event! I watched for a month leading up to the event as the ticket prices plummeted while the scalpers were desperate to get at least something for their tickets before my ticket was even delivered to me. As soon as they take my money, they should update the database to show that the ticket is mine. If I want to sell it, I should be able to do that immediately too. But, from what I've read, that instant resale ability only belongs to their "partners" who resell a lot of tickets, and you need access to their "TradeDesk" tool to do it: https://tradedesk.ticketmaster.com https://tradedesk.ticketmaster.com

mike503 2y ago
This began a lot more on third party sites like stubhub due to Covid and the massive amount of cancellations; before most places paid out after the sale, and if the buyer wound up having an issue (due to the seller mistake, selling it multiple times, whatever) they would charge the seller and usually assess a penalty. But when everything in the world was being cancelled I assume they didn't have all the money just sitting around to reverse and it was a ton of thrash to deal with. As someone who had bought tons of tickets and sold some, it was a mess. I had a ton of credit card refunds back, the third party sites had to reverse payments, etc. Waiting until after the event is just less overhead. Guarantees the transaction happened without a hitch. There are some POS and broker sites that still pay on transfer, but none of the "primary" secondary market does.
Ocha 2y ago
Just vote with your pocket and don’t buy tickets from them. I do that - yes I don’t get to go to major concerts but there are still so much more that is not on ticket master. I found a lot of new entertainment and was happy to pay $4 fee instead of whatever TM charges nowadays.

cypherpunks01 2y ago

It's simply 0% financing for their business. No more complex than that.

patates 2y ago

Maybe to stop people selling the ticket and still going to the event with a pre-printed one? Solving that would also be easy if they have a central verification system (just invalidate the ticket and issue a new one) but not if it is all p2p. (disclaimer: I'm a complete outsider, last time I bought anything from Ticketmaster was a really long time ago).

Phemist 2y ago
They would need to solve that anyway in case 2 or more friends attempt to get in on the same ticket. Not at all difficult - simply share screen a third device and display the rotating QR-code through e.g. zoom on individual phones. For additional trickery, try to split the group into joining multiple ticket scanning lines and timing the scan of the ticket to be as close as possible to eachother.

krger 2y ago

>When you purchase a ticket from them and resell it on their marketplace, once someone purchases it, they(Ticketmaster) hold your funds and only give you the money ~7-14 business days after the event is over. They say this is to verify the validity of the ticket. I imagine it's more about discouraging scalping, regardless of what they may say about it.

garaetjjte 2y ago

Possibly it's fraud prevention, in case payment for the original ticket was fraudulent and chargeback occurs after the ticket is resold on marketplace?

LorenPechtel 2y ago
That does sound like a very reasonable thing to do. Otherwise you have a threat vector of steal card, buy ticket, sell ticket, pocket the cash, card owner disputes, now Ticketmaster has paid a stolen identity who took the money and ran. Anything that can be used to monetize stolen cards will tend to be used for the purpose even if it's inefficient.

elcomet 2y ago

Because you could just print the ticket, then sell it, and still enter the show with it ?

mmmlinux 2y ago
This is literally what the rolling codes prevent.