Ticketmaster Creates Fake Facebook Friends

From the Wired music blog: "It appears that the company [Ticketmaster] hired someone or something to create fake Facebook friends in order to look more popular to other Facebook users."

I can understand why Ticketmaster would need to create fake friends. I recently bought tickets to see The Cure. After paying $35 for each ticket, I found out I also had to pay a $20 "convenience charge" to Ticketmaster, which didn't make me feel very friendly toward them.

Advertising

Posted on Tue Apr 22, 2008



Comments

You saw the Cure? Rock on!
Posted by Razela  on  Tue Apr 22, 2008  at  09:24 PM
This conjures up memories of David Manning, film critic 😛.
Posted by Hugo  on  Tue Apr 22, 2008  at  11:37 PM
that sucks. When we post it should be for altruistic reasons, not for monetary gain. Buy Ovaltine
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Wed Apr 23, 2008  at  02:45 PM
I tried avoiding the online convenience fee by driving to the store and buying them from the ticketmaster booth and they charged me int there to. I could have gone to the box office and got the tickets for cheaper and not made the fee if there wasnt this level of legalized scalping. Ive never understood how its allowed when scalping is illegal.
Posted by Tim  on  Fri Apr 25, 2008  at  12:22 AM
Actually, scalping isn't illegal everywhere -- it isn't here in Indiana where I live.

And you know, I don't see why it should be illegal anywhere. It seems to me that scalping is the purest form of free enterprise: You buy a commodity (tickets in this case), you sell that commodity for whatever the market will bear, and sometimes you make money, sometimes you lose money. In the case of Ticketmaster, they are charging extra (quite a bit extra) to save the buyer inconvenience, and goodness knows it does save quite a bit of inconvenience, and that sounds like free enterprise to me, too. Again, you sell that service for whatever the market will bear.

I know people get all het up about ticket prices, but it's not as though there is some inalienable right to see ___(whoever)___ in concert. If I don't want to pay X amount for a ticket, or I don't want to pay X amount for a service charge, and I can't find a less expensive way to go, I just don't go to the event. I mean, jeez, it's a concert -- it's not insulin. There is no such thing as a concert that anybody just HAS to go to.
Posted by Kathleen  on  Fri Apr 25, 2008  at  07:42 AM
Yeah, Ticketmaster is vile slime.
Several years ago, you could just go to a box office and buy a ticket for the face price. Then Ticketmaster somehow sewed up a monopoy and started charging an arm and a leg for the "convenience" or "service" of not being able to get tickets from anyone else. I don't know if Ticketmaster is actually separate from the Mafia, but it has the same business ethic.
The only way way Ticketmaster could have friends would be if it fabricated or bought them.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Fri Apr 25, 2008  at  10:25 AM
The convenience of driving to a shopping mall, fighting for a parking place, dredging through crowds of teenagers to get to a counter to buy the tickets is SO much more convenient than buying a ticket at the box office where there is no fight for parking palces if you go when there isnt an event. Now days the ampatheaters and what not even have websites where you can buy tickets from the box office, but there is a very small limited number of tickets available because the majority are sold before hand to ticketmaster.
Posted by Tim  on  Wed Apr 30, 2008  at  03:46 PM
was googling ticketmaster booth and found this page.. its kinda crazy... i bought 2 $58 tickets and they are charging $12 per ticket... coz wasnt sure how it works buying from the box office (i m from HK and first time getting concert tickets in here in case you wonder y i m so stupid =( ) they charged me a whopping 20% of the ticket price... i guess i'd try my best to go to the box office to get 'em next time no matter wat..
Posted by Pete  on  Thu Jun 05, 2008  at  10:40 AM
That's wild. Does anyone know if Ticketmaster is still doing this?
Posted by Ava  on  Tue Oct 27, 2009  at  03:28 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.