Did You Get Free Concert Tix in Ticketmaster Settlement?

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Update (July 7): Ticketmaster states: “To date, class members have redeemed nearly $15M worth of ticket vouchers, almost three times the amount required by the settlement this year. At this time, the eligible event list has closed. We will periodically notify class members who have signed up for the e-mail subscription service when additional inventory becomes available.”

Summer is prime concert season. And this summer you just might get tickets for free or at a reduced price.

If you are one of the some 50 million fans who paid an “order-processing fee” or had your tickets sent via UPS when making a purchase on Ticketmaster‘s website from Oct. 21, 1999, through Feb. 27, 2013, you are likely due a discount on future purchase. It’s the result of the settlement of a $400 million class action lawsuit against the national event ticketing company.

As of June 20, Ticketmaster is crediting vouchers and discounts to the online ticket agency’s users. To find out if you’ve gotten them, log into your Ticketmaster account. Once in, click on “Active Vouchers.” Best be quick, though.

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Ah, but here’s the rub: Those vouchers and discount codes are only good for some specified events. Ticketmaster has listed the events on its site on this page that for which vouchers and discount codes will be usable.

On June 22, Ticketmaster wrote: “Nearly $5m worth of eligible ticket vouchers have been redeemed and the first wave of eligible events has been closed.”

Clicking on the above link on June 23, however, revealed hundreds of new events. The page allows you to plug in your market. We typed in “new york city.” The good news? We got listings for 65 dates in the area including concerts by Steely Dan, Hall and Oates, Def Leppard, The English Beat with Soul Asylum, Black Sabbath, The Bangles and more. Alas, the vouchers had all been redeemed.

This is all the result of a lawsuit filed 13 years ago, Curt Schlesinger et al. v. Ticketmaster, that contended that the company – now owned by concert promotion powerhouse Live Nation, but not at the time the suit was filed – was charging “excessive and deceptive” fees. Those were the “order processing fee” and “UPS delivery fee.” The suit charged that Ticketmaster did not apply those fees to those purposes, and that they were simply means to extract more profits.

In the settlement of the suit that was finalized in April, Ticketmaster did not admit any wrongdoing. And do recognize that even if it may seem like you are getting free tickets and discounts, it is a refund of sorts from overcharging in the past.

For those of you interested in further information on the suit, there’s a FAQ here and more details about the litigation here.