TicketNetwork's fees hit 53% and its discounts no one could reach — fined $825K

TicketNetwork resells tickets to concerts, sport, theatre and entertainment events. A Competition Bureau investigation concluded it advertised prices no buyer could pay: mandatory fees added more than 38% on average — and over 53% in some cases — to the listed price. It also promoted 'discounted' tickets consumers could never actually purchase, because the same mandatory fees landed on top of the advertised discount, making the discount itself unobtainable.

The deception reached beyond the price. Tickets to Canadian events were advertised in American dollars without clearly identifying the currency, and the company's search-engine ads and website URLs gave the false impression that buyers were dealing with the venue, the artist or the team — not a reseller. On 21 November 2023 TicketNetwork signed a consent agreement: an $825,000 penalty, a commitment to stop drip pricing and unobtainable discounts, to identify currency clearly, to stop misrepresenting resale sites as primary vendors, and to run a compliance program.

TicketNetwork was the third ticketing consent agreement — after Ticketmaster's $4.5 million in 2019 and StubHub's $1.3 million in 2020 — and ticketing penalties had by then passed $6 million. Commissioner Matthew Boswell's standard: resellers must stop misrepresenting that they are primary vendors when they are not.