TICKETMASTER REACHES NATIONAL SETTLEMENT

Ticketmaster will stop linking customers to subsidiaryby Peggy McGlone/The Star-LedgerMonday February 23, 2009, 1:11 PMTicket giant Ticketmaster has reached a national settlement with the New Jersey Attorney General in which it agrees to stop linking customers to TicketsNow, a subsidiary agency that sells tickets at scalper's prices.Attorney General Anne Milgram said Ticketmaster has agreed to run a lottery that will make 2,000 tickets available at face value to customers who complained about the way Ticketmaster handled the Feb. 2 sale of tickets to Bruce Springsteen's shows May 21 and 23 at the Izod Center at the Meadlowlands.More than 2,200 fans complained to the Attorney General that they were redirected from the Tickemaster website to TicketsNow even though tickets were still available at face value.Fans - more than 1,000 - who don't win a pair of tickets in the lottery will be given $100 gift certificates, Milgram said, and the ability to purchase tickets for an upcoming Springsteen concert in New Jersey.The settlement requires Ticketmaster to pay $350,000 to the state for costs associated with the investigation.It will also end a previous advertising arrangement in which customers Googling for Ticketmaster were automatically sent to the TicketsNow web site."This is a very significant agreement for consumers in New Jersey," said Milgram at a morning press conference at the Izod Center. "The settlement is national in scope and it changes fundamentally Ticketmaster's business practices."