{"id":135017,"date":"2017-11-29T22:20:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T03:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=135017"},"modified":"2017-11-29T22:20:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T03:20:19","slug":"fans-deserve-a-fair-shot-alberta-proposes-help-for-online-ticket-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/11\/29\/fans-deserve-a-fair-shot-alberta-proposes-help-for-online-ticket-buyers\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Fans deserve a fair shot:’ Alberta proposes help for online ticket buyers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Proposed<\/a>
Proposed legislation introduced Wednesday would also give the province power to take action if buyers didn’t get the tickets they purchased on a resale site. \u201cThere is a widespread feeling among Albertans that the ticketing game is rigged against them,\u201d said Service Alberta Minister Stephanie McLean. (Photo<\/a>: Stephanie McLean\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EDMONTON\u2014Alberta plans to bring in rules to ban ticket-gobbling software bots that shut out individual consumers when they try to buy concert or event tickets online.<\/p>\n

Proposed legislation introduced Wednesday would also give the province power to take action if buyers didn’t get the tickets they purchased on a resale site.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a widespread feeling among Albertans that the ticketing game is rigged against them,\u201d said Service Alberta Minister Stephanie McLean.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s unfair when they try to buy a concert ticket to only see that it’s sold out in seconds and shows up on resellers’ websites for inflated prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cFans deserve a fair shot at tickets to see their favourite artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ticket-sellers doing business in the province would have to weed out large-scale block-bot purchases and cancel those tickets.<\/p>\n

If they didn’t, the province could act on complaints, investigate and levy fines up to $300,000 or seek up to two years in jail.<\/p>\n

The proposed legislation also makes it clear that ticket-buyers could sue ticket-sellers for compensation on the grounds that tickets were sold to bots.<\/p>\n

McLean suggested ticket-sellers also want to stop the bots and are looking for more legislative tools to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard to combat these bots. It takes a lot of resources,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re simply going to start off by holding them accountable for policing their industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secondary ticket-sellers doing business in Alberta, such as StubHub, would have to refund the full price if a ticket sold was counterfeit or was cancelled because it was purchased by a bot.<\/p>\n

If not, the province could investigate and level fines.<\/p>\n

The bill also proposes broad changes to consumer protections, along with actions in areas from auto sales to veterinary fees.<\/p>\n

Businesses would no longer be able to demand provisions preventing dissatisfied customers from filing lawsuits and they couldn’t try to stop customers from filing negative reviews online.<\/p>\n

Car dealerships and repair shops would have to be more upfront about a vehicle’s history and repair estimates.<\/p>\n

High-interest lenders, such as pawn shops and rent-to-own furniture sellers, would have licence requirements and would have to spell out in plain language to customers how much transactions would cost.<\/p>\n

Veterinarians would have to disclose all fees so pet owners were aware of the costs before giving the OK for their animals to get treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON\u2014Alberta plans to bring in rules to ban ticket-gobbling software bots that shut out individual consumers when they try to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":135035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[1771,36159,3898],"class_list":["post-135017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-alberta","tag-consumer-protection","tag-edmonton","mauthors-dean-bennett","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}