Ticketmaster issues partial refund to The Cure ticket holders after charging ‘unduly high’ service fees

The Cure frontman Robert Smith secured a small but significant victory against Ticketmaster last week, convincing the live music giant to issue partial refunds to fans after charging “unduly high” fees for the band’s North American tour.

On Tuesday, ticket holders began receiving an automatic refund of between $5 and $10, according to tweets from fans.

“This is an encouraging precedent, even if it’s no substitute for needed regulation,” tweeted the Future of Music Coalition, a U.S. non-profit working to ensure that artists are fairly and transparently compensated.

“Artists take heed: when you speak up (with both conviction and nuance), you can make new things possible.”

The showdown between The Cure and Ticketmaster started last week, when the influential British band announced plans to keep ticket prices for their North American tour, which includes a Toronto stop, affordable, with tickets being sold for as little as $20.

But fans looking to grab the cheap seats were faced with a bundle of service fees that in some cases cost more than the ticket itself.

Smith quickly took to Twitter to express his frustration with Ticketmaster.

“I AM AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE. TO BE VERY CLEAR: THE ARTIST HAS NO WAY TO LIMIT THEM,” he wrote on March 14.

Last Thursday, Smith provided fans with an update, tweeting that Ticketmaster agreed the fees were “unduly high” and to provide partial refunds. The amount might not be much, but fans appreciate Smith’s effort nonetheless.

Smith is the latest high profile artist to go to war with Ticketmaster over high ticket prices and availability.

Last November, Taylor Swift posted a story on Instagram expressing her anger and frustration over the hours spent by fans trying to buy tickets for her world tour.

“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” Swift wrote. “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.”

In December, a group of Swift fans filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster, alleging that its parent company Live Nation Entertainment Inc. engaged in fraud, price-fixing and antitrust-law violations as well as “intentionally and purposefully mislead(ing) ticket purchasers by allowing scalpers and bots access to TaylorSwiftTix presale.”

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