Syracuse,
NY – April 2015 / Newsmaker Alert / The Great
New York State Fair has alerted fans of pop star Meghan Trainor to
false advertising of online ticket sales for Trainor’s concert at the Fair’s
Chevy Court stage, announced Acting Fair Director Troy Waffner. The concert,
which is being held on September 3, is free with admission to the Fair.
Yet in some cases, tickets are being sold online for more than $1,500 dollars.
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 “We’ve
worked hard to put on the best Chevy
Court lineup of free entertainment in our history, and someone is trying
to take advantage of that by duping fans who might think that a star of
Meghan Trainor’s magnitude is playing at our Grandstand. She is not, and
I hope no one is fooled by this obvious attempt at fraud,” said Waffner.
A would-be ticket buyer alerted
the Fair to the ticket sales scam. The problem began with the website meghantrainor-tour.com.
A link on the page that listed Trainor’s September 3 performance at the
Fair goes directly to the website TicketNetwork.com.
The Ticket Network page shows
a map, created by the Fair, of the seating areas at the Grandstand, giving
the impression the show is at the Fair’s paid concert venue and not at
the free Chevy Court venue. Next to the map is a long list of the actual
sections of Grandstand seating, complete with names and row numbers, and
prices for tickets in those sections. The tool lists no more than 6 tickets
left in any section. Prices range from $100 for seats in the distant areas
of the Grandstand to $1,592 for one of four remaining meet-and-greet passes
for a non-existent backstage meeting with Trainor.
In all, the site listed 178
“tickets” worth more than $47,000 to see Trainor’s imaginary Grandstand
concert. The site posts a “125% Satisfaction Guarantee” but notes elsewhere
on each page that all sales are final and there are no refunds, exchanges,
or cancellations. The page to purchase the tickets notes that prices are
set by third party sellers, but nothing on the page discloses the identity
of the third party seller. The site’s Terms of Use says that the identity
of the third party seller will only be disclosed in an e-mail sent after
the purchase has been completed.
Ticket Network describes
itself as a ticket marketplace, one which helps to connect “thousands of
live entertainment fans to the vast network of independent sellers that
list tickets on the TicketNetwork Online Exchange. These sellers—from fans
with extra or unwanted tickets, to professional ticket brokers—offer more
than 7.5 million event tickets on our exchange every day.”
Similar lists of tickets
with modest differences in pricing were found on sites such as VividSeats.com
and MyCityRocks.com. VividSeats was generating automated ads offering tickets
to the phony concert on various websites that create ads based on the websites
you have visited after leaving VividSeats’ site. It is not clear whether
any of the sites are aware of the fraudulent tickets or whether the sites
are affiliated with each other in any way.
The Great New York State
Fair sells concert tickets in only one place – the Fair’s ticket sales
site on Etix.com.
Waffner offered some tips
for safe ticket buying to summer concerts:
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Buy from well-known reputable
companies such as Ticketmaster, Etix, and StubHub.
-
Check the reputation of companies
you’re not familiar with at the Better Business Bureau’s website, www.bbb.org,
where you can see the Bureau’s rating of a given business and read complaints
made about the company.
-
Read the site’s Terms of Use
and look for any guarantees the company makes.
-
Use a credit card or PayPal
account to buy tickets online. It is much easier to resolve problems when
you can dispute a purchase. It’s your protection against a business with
a “no refunds” policy.
-
Never send cash through the
mail or wire money to an account.
-
Preserve any receipt you receive
in the mail or via e-mail.
Consumers wishing to make a
complaint about a company can access a free online form at the New York
State Division of Consumer Protection at www.dos.ny.gov/consumerprotection/form/complaintform.asp.
“We cannot allow fame and
fandom to be used as a tool for fraud,” said Aiesha Battle, Director, New
York State Division of Consumer Protection. “The New York Department of
State’s Division of Consumer Protection advises New Yorkers to remain vigilant
and perform due diligence before spending their hard-earned money on tickets
to any event. We recommend buying tickets from a trusted and well-known
company in order to safeguard against scammers and their deceptive practices.”
The New
York State Fair, operated by the New
York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, runs from August
27 – September 7, 2015. The Fair’s mission, reflected in its theme, “Summer’s
Best in Show,” is to showcase the best of New York agriculture while providing
top-quality entertainment.
In addition to the annual
New York State Fair, the Fairgrounds host dozens of agricultural events
throughout the year, including some of the Northeast’s most prestigious
horse and livestock shows.
The home of the Great New
York State Fair is a 375-acre exhibit and entertainment complex that operates
all year. A year-round
schedule of events is available on the Fair’s
website. Find The Great New
York State Fair on Facebook, follow @NYSFair
on Twitter, and enjoy photos from the Fair at Flickr.com/photos/nysfair.
Also, New Yorkers are invited to send their ideas for the Great New York
State Fair at statefairideas@agriculture.ny.gov.
Media Contacts:
Joe
Morrissey
Public Information Officer
NYS Department of Agriculture
& Markets
518-457-0752
Dave
Bullard
Public Relations
New York State Fair
315-487-7711 x 1377 |
