An Ottawa man says he's been ripped-off by an online ticket re-seller after he unknowingly bought tickets to the upcoming Elton John and Billy Joel concert for twice the price.
"I'm on a very limited income, I'm retired. I don't have a lot of money. I was doing something very nice that cost me very dearly," David Fuller told CTV Ottawa, explaining he wanted to purchase the tickets for his daughter.
Like many people, Fuller logged on to the Ticketmaster website to purchase tickets for the show. At the time, he didn't know Capital Tickets was the official ticket seller for the concert.
"Somehow, I got connected to another company which had tickets available. They looked rather expensive, but it's a once in a lifetime opportunity," he said.
The website Fuller was bumped to was TicketsNow, a re-selling website owned by Ticketmaster.
Once Fuller was there, he found the tickets he was looking for and purchased both for $485. When they arrived the next day, he noticed the tickets were listed for $90 each.
"I think it's incredible that a company can get away with that kind of thing. It may not be illegal, but it certainly is unethical," he said.
In Ottawa, Capital Tickets is owned by the Ottawa Senators. Cyril Leeder, the team's COO, says scalping tickets is out of his control.
"We have people showing up here at the arena, don't even know they've purchased tickets with an inflated value until they get here and realize the guy sitting next to them is paying half or a third of what they've paid," Leeder told CTV Ottawa.
"They think they've bought them from an authorized agent and they haven't."
An Ontario lawsuit has already been filed on the issue of online re-selling, claiming Ticketmaster has broken the province's anti-scalping laws by directing potential buyers to the TicketsNow website.
Ticketmaster has just settled a similar case in New Jersey with Bruce Springsteen fans. Now, the company has removed all links to TicketsNow from its Canadian website.
Still, that doesn't ease Fuller's concerns about the risk of buying tickets online. He says he feels "absolutely taken advantage of" and won't ever purchase tickets online again.
"I won't be buying anymore tickets from Ticketmaster, Capital Tickets, and certainly not from TicketsNow. I've had season tickets for hockey for many years and I'm not sure I'll renew those," he said.
Although Capital Tickets has sold out for the Elton John and Billy Joel Face2Face concert coming to Ottawa this June, TicketsNow still has many for sale, including floor tickets selling for as much as $2,100.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Natalie Pierosara
