RICHMOND, Va. β A Richmond man who bought tickets to an Ariana Grande concert next year said his tickets have been reinstated after being canceled and flagged for violating the site's terms.
Ethan Martin told CBS 6 that he purchased two tickets for one of Grande's three Eternal Sunshine Tour shows in Montreal next July during the artist presale in early September.
Monday, he received an email that his tickets were being canceled after Ticketmaster "ran an extensive review of all purchases" and his order was flagged for violating the site's terms of use.
"This may have been due to exceeding the ticket purchase limits set by the tour and/or providing conflicting account information," the email from Ticketmaster reads. In his numerous attempts to contact Ticketmaster for an explanation, Martin says he's been given different answers.
"I've gone through several levels of escalation on support. The first level of escalation told me that I exceeded the ticket purchase limit. I bought two tickets, the limit is six," he said.
Martin said that after questioning that response, he was then escalated to a higher level of support, who gave him a different answer.
"There is no indication of what terms I violated. They now say that they don't see, for security purposes, they're not allowed to know what terms were violated, which also doesn't make sense to me," Martin explained. "And if they send me an email that says, 'Hey, we went over your stuff and you were not verified,' there's no guarantee that I will be told what I did wrong."
After completing an appeal process, Martin told CBS 6 on Tuesday that his tickets have been reinstated.
The concert is scheduled during the couple's honeymoon. He shared that his fiancee, Kristen Myers, was devastated by the tickets being canceled.
"She spent a good 12 hours crying yesterday. Not a hyperbole. She cried pretty profusely when I got the tickets because she was overwhelmed and excited. It's pretty crushing to just be told, 'Nope!'" Martin shared. "I'm feeling pretty discouraged. It definitely feels a little shady."
Ariana Grande's most recent tour concluded in December 2019. After adding additional shows to the already-planned arena stops because of high demand, the Eternal Sunshine Tour will play 41 shows in three different countries.
As many may recall from Taylor Swift's Eras Tour: when tickets are in high demand, scalping can become an issue.
Tickets for the Eternal Sunshine tour were originally priced from $73.90 to $799 and sold out within minutes. Both Ticketmaster and SeatGeek now have tickets listed for resale well above face value, with the cheapest, limited-view seats starting at $400 or more. Martin shared that he paid $350 apiece and that other tickets in the same row are currently listed for resale at around $2,450.
Not long after the general sale, Grande shared with fans on her Instagram story that she was "incredibly bothered" by the tickets being resold and that she and her team "will do, and are doing, everything we can."
Martin shared that he was feeling discouraged while the tickets were still in limbo.
"This really erodes the confidence in their platform. It definitely feels like this is a ploy to put more money in the pockets of resellers and not less," Martin said. "If they revoke them, I 100% expect those tickets to just appear on the resell platform for eight to nine times the face value."
CBS 6 reached out to Ticketmaster for more information and received the following statement:
"We partnered with the tour to review all ticket purchases, and the good news is that most purchases were made by real fans who use the tickets they buy to attend shows. Suspicious activity was flagged as noted in the email and if someone feels they were misidentified thereβs a quick security check that can help resolve that. We thank those fans for doing this and helping us weed out bad actors from real fans."
Do you have a similar experience to share? Email your story to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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