Ticketmaster Under Fire for Misleading Oasis Fans in the UK
LONDON (Reuters) -Ticketmaster may have misled music fans seeking to buy tickets to see British band Oasis last year, Britain's competition watchdog said on Tuesday, adding that it wanted the company to change how it labels tickets and informs customers.
Thousands of fans waited for hours in virtual queues last year to get their hands on highly coveted tickets for the band's reunion shows, only to find that prices had jumped in a "dynamic pricing" scheme.
"We’re concerned that Oasis fans didn’t get the information they needed or may have been misled into buying tickets they thought were better than they were," said Hayley Fletcher, Interim Senior Director of Consumer Protection at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
The CMA launched an investigation into Ticketmaster in September to examine if it had engaged in "unfair commercial practices," if fans were given "clear and timely" information to explain tickets could be subject to "dynamic pricing", and if people were put under pressure to buy tickets within a short period of time.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru and William James in London; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Sarah Young)
