Ticketmaster Class Action: Failure to Convert Currency Cheats Brokers

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Ticketmaster short-changes event promoters by failing to convert from U.S. to Canadian dollars, according to a California ticket broker.

Defendant Ticketmaster provides an electronic platform that facilitates retail sales of tickets between ticket brokers and event attendees.

Plaintiff Eric Fuller, the owner and operator of ticket brokering business Fullatickets, says that between June 2015 and March 2016, Ticketmaster paid brokers like himself in Canadian dollars for tickets sold for events in Canada.

But instead of converting the payments from U.S. dollars to Canadian dollars, Fuller claims, Ticketmaster issued checks in Canadian dollars for the same dollar amount reflected in its point of sale system, which uses U.S. dollars as its default currency.

Since the Canadian dollar was worth about two-thirds of a U.S. dollar at that time, the resulting checks were worth only about two-thirds of what Ticketmaster actually owed the broker, Fuller claims.

So, for example, if Ticketmaster owed a broker $100 in U.S. currency for tickets to a Canadian event purchased via the Ticketmaster platform, Ticketmaster would issue that broker a check for $100 in Canadian currency.

The exchange rate at the time of this practice was about $0.65 U.S. dollars to each Canadian dollar, Fuller says. Therefore the broker who received the $100 check would be getting shorted by $35.

Prior to June 2015, Fuller says Ticketmaster paid for Canadian tickets using the same electronic payment system that it used to pay for U.S. tickets, and it paid for both types of tickets together.

Ticketmaster then informed brokers that it would begin issuing separate payments for Canadian tickets. These payments would be issued in check form, instead of the electronic payments the company had previously made.

Fuller accuses Ticketmaster of deliberately concealing its currency-switching practice from ticket brokers. He claims Ticketmaster falsely represented that it would compensate him and the proposed Class Members for the ticket inventory they provided to Ticketmaster. He claims Ticketmaster did not have the authority to sell tickets at a price lower than that authorized by the broker, nor the authority to switch payment to a foreign currency without converting it according to the applicable exchange rate.

In addition, Fuller also claims Ticketmaster has been failing to issue refunds to ticket brokers when events get cancelled.

This Ticketmaster class action lawsuit raises claims for negligence, negligent misrepresentation, intentional misrepresentation, conversion, and breach of contract

Fuller is proposing two plaintiff Classes for this Ticketmaster class action lawsuit. One Class would represent all persons who delivered ticket inventory to Ticketmaster and whom Ticketmaster paid by check in Canadian dollars without adjusting the payment to reflect the difference between U.S. and Canadian currency.

The second Class would represent all persons who delivered ticket inventory to Ticketmaster and who were not fully refunded the purchase price of tickets for cancelled events, exclusive of the cost of any express shipping.

He seeks an award of actual and punitive damages and reimbursement of court costs and attorney fees, as well as any other relief the court deems appropriate.

Fuller is represented by attorney Erik C. Jenkins of Jenkins PC.

The Ticketmaster Currency Mismatch Class Action Lawsuit is Fuller v. Ticketmaster, Case No. 37-2017-00038371, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Diego.