NIVA Letter to State Attorneys General re: deceptive URLs
To: Chief Deputy State Attorneys General
State Attorneys General Consumer Protection Section Chiefs
Dear State Attorneys General Chief Deputies and Consumer Protection Section Chiefs:
Over the last two decades, ticket resale scalpers have worked to change long-standing state laws that made ticket scalping illegal. Now, multibillion-dollar ticket resale websites and professional scalpers operate unchecked in a way that has made the ticket resale experience like a black market. The current resale black market is driven by anonymous sellers from all over the world, unverified listings, bot-driven inventory hoarding, speculative tickets sold without ownership, deceptive marketing, and platforms that profit from all of it while refusing to police any of it.
One critical way that ticket scalpers bamboozle your constituents is with deceptive websites and URLs. Independent venues, festivals, and promoters nationwide have recently discovered 6,000 deceptive URLs and websites that are deceiving consumers into believing they are buying tickets directly from the artist or the venue producing the show.
On behalf of the nation’s independent venues, festivals, and promoters, I am writing to urge your offices to investigate and enforce your states’ deceptive practices laws, and where applicable, explicit bans on deceptive ticket URLs.
The sites discovered redirect users from purchasing legitimate tickets at face value from the real box offices of small businesses and nonprofits, instead sending them to platforms like StubHub, TicketNetwork, TicketSqueeze, Concerts50, and BigStub that are price gouging and selling speculative and fake tickets. Average consumers - and even diehard fans buying tickets to shows every week - don’t know what is an actual artist or venue site and what isn’t. A spreadsheet with the 6,000 discovered deceptive URLs is attached to this letter.
National instances of deceptive website practices include websites with:
unauthorized use of artist or venue trademarks, logos, marketing images, copyrighted videos, and protected imagery to make the site look legitimate or official;
URLs and website text with artist names, venue names, festival names, tour names, and other protected trademarks to deceive fans into purchasing price-gouged or potentially fraudulent tickets;
deceptive design elements to mimic actual, official venue or artist websites; and
the sale of tickets that are regularly many times the face value of tickets still available directly from the venue/promoter ticketing platform organizing the show or fake/speculative tickets for shows that do not exist at the venue.
Furthermore, the lack of accurate listings - or any listings at all - on a number of these predatory resale ticketing sites is likely causing fans to miss out on shows. Bad actors are deceiving fans into believing that the “tickets” they are selling include a comprehensive listing of all shows the venue or promoter is hosting. The widespread deceptive practices and fraud of deceptive websites is misleading the public into thinking ticket prices are much higher than what independent stages actually charge, potentially discouraging them from buying tickets and harming our sales.
It is also harming the fan relationship with artists. Fans believe that when they click on links to sites like “www.joshjohnson.net” or “www.eric-church.com” early in the search results due to scalpers’ abuse of permissive search engine advertising platforms, that they are seeing price gouged or speculative tickets directly from comedian Josh Johnson or country artist Eric Church. Those fans feel betrayed.
Major Scalper Platforms Powering Profits for Deceptive Websites & URLs with Affiliate Programs
Major scalper and resale platform affiliate programs empower and systematize this fan and consumer deception. For example, StubHub, TicketNetwork, and TicketSqueeze have widely publicized and marketed affiliate programs that pay between a 4% and 12.5% commission on ticket sales via tracked links, widgets, plugins, and cookies. It is the perverse incentive that fuels the profit that scalpers derive from these deceptive sites.
It is unclear if StubHub, TicketNetwork, Viagogo (StubHub’s owner), Concerts50, TicketSqueeze, and BigStub own, operate, or are aware of these deceptive sites, that could be in violation of state laws. However, even if they are not aware or claim to not be aware, they should be aware and they should have to universally disclose the business names/user names and locations of their partner sellers on their platforms, verify that every ticket sold on their platform is real and in the possession of the reseller, and not profit massively off of their affiliates’ deceptive websites. If they are empowering these websites through their affiliate programs, they share responsibility and liability for those harmed by them.
These same companies have been challenged by governments and legal authorities before on deception and yet this is still happening. TicketNetwork was forced to reach a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission due to its fraudulent practices that include deceptive websites and forced to enter a consent decree with the Canadian government to continue operating in the country due to fraudulent practices and deceptive search engine advertising. BigStub has been challenged before the World Intellectual Property Organization by artists, including Pearl Jam, on its use of deceptive URLs and lost. StubHub was challenged legally by the UK Competition and Markets Authority for different types of deceptive practices.
We aren’t just assuming fans are falling prey to these deceptive and fraudulent schemes by scalpers and resale platforms. There are stories all over the internet from Reddit to Better Business Bureau from fans who have lost money and not been able to secure refunds when they bought price gouged tickets or when their tickets did not work. Someone shared this story on scampulse.com detailing how they lost $213.49 on a website selling TicketSqueeze “tickets” that was using a deceptive website to spoof Stage AE in Pittsburgh.
“Ticketsqueeze operates a fake website where they pretend to be Stage AE. It's the first website that comes up when searching the venue, and the tagline says Stage AE while the website is just stagepittsburgh.com. They inflate resale tickets and charge ridiculous fees.” – User 5BJnXi - Morgantown, WV, USA
We found 6,000 websites in a matter of hours. We believe this problem is widespread and could potentially reach tens of thousands of deceptive websites and URLs.
We are calling on state Attorneys General offices to take the following actions:
Investigate these deceptive websites and any other similar websites for potential violations of your state’s Uniform or Deceptive Acts or Practices and Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Acts and bring enforcement actions against any individuals or entities that are in violation of those laws or regulations.
If your state is one of the 14 with explicit laws banning deceptive URLs or deceptive websites, investigate and bring enforcement actions against any individuals and entities that are in violation of those laws.
Work with your Governor and legislature to put in place additional, explicit consumer protections banning deceptive ticketing websites, speculative tickets, resale price gouging bans, and disclosure requirements for the username/business name and location of each reseller.
Scalper Platforms Must Act Now to End This Deception & Potential Fraud
We are also calling on StubHub, TicketNetwork, Viagogo (owner of Stubhub), Concerts50, TicketSqueeze, and BigStub to immediately:
terminate affiliate and seller accounts for scalpers using deceptive websites or URLs that links to their platform, starting with the 6,000 identified in this letter;
permanently ban these scalpers from selling on their platforms ever again; and
cease the operation of their affiliate program until they can effectively ban and police any and all affiliate sellers from using deceptive websites and URLs to sell tickets for their platforms and profit off of that deception.
We also urge them to cooperate with state Attorneys General investigations in this matter, providing all relevant materials requested by your offices to hold them and their sellers accountable under your state laws.
Markets only work when they are honest. Fans should not have to become forensic investigators to know whether they are buying a real ticket from a real box office. Artists and independent stages cannot fight a sprawling national network of anonymous scalpers one deceptive URL at a time.
We stand ready to work with you to use the full authority of your offices to stop this deception, hold accountable every actor profiting from it, and restore trust in the live experience.
Sincerely,
Stephen Parker
Executive Director
National Independent Venue Association
Attachments:
ABOUT NIVA
The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) is the national trade association representing thousands of independent live entertainment venues, festivals, promoters, and more. NIVA works to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of live entertainment. NIVA empowers members and their teams with member benefits, advocacy on the state, local, and federal levels, an annual industry-leading conference, and more.
NIVA led the Save Our Stages campaign, culminating in landmark legislation in 2020 that established the $16.25 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, the largest arts investment in U.S. history.
NIVA is committed to equity in its support of independent stages. It seeks to create and encourage opportunities for venues, promoters, and festivals owned, operated, and staffed by people of color, women, non-binary, LGBTQ+, veterans, and people with disabilities.
CONTACT
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