Deceptive Websites Prey Upon Orchestra Ticket Buyers

In Saturday’s (5/26) Boston Globe, Sean P. Murphy writes, “Think you’re buying Tanglewood concert tickets from the Boston Symphony Orchestra? Make sure you double check. Joe Berger paid $822 for four tickets on a ticket resale website thinking he was on the BSO’s official site, where equivalent tickets were available for only $316…. The website wasn’t an official BSO site. It was a ticket resale lookalike called Tickets-center.com…. In recent years, [such] sites have proliferated, so much so that Congress is considering bills that would, among other things, require more transparency from ticket resale websites…. The BSO is part of a broad coalition called Fix the Tix that is pushing for help from Congress and the Federal Trade Commission. The House of Representatives earlier this month passed a bill dubbed the Ticket Act that would require all fees associated with ticket sales to be disclosed upfront and guarantee refunds … The Senate bill, called Fans First Act, would go further by prohibiting the use of deceptive websites … ‘We’re encouraged that there’s momentum building toward dealing with this,’ said Heather Noonan, vice president for advocacy at the League of American Orchestras. ‘It’s a problem venues and performers are having across the country.’ ”