Parents Angered By Exorbitant Tickets

October 06, 2007 - Source: Jennifer Fernandez, Staff Writer

GREENSBORO - As long as there has been the Big Game or the Must-See Show, there have been ticket scalpers.

But some may have gone too far, charging hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for Disney's Hannah Montana concert - taking advantage, one mother says, of little girls' dreams.

Missouri has sued several online brokers, and Arkansas has launched an investigation.

Greensboro mother Lyn Peraldo filed a lawsuit Friday against TicketsNow.com. She says the company violated North Carolina laws against ticket scalping. The state allows ticket companies to charge $3 more than the face value of a ticket.

The Illinois-based company sold Peraldo four tickets to the Nov. 25 concert at the Greensboro Coliseum. Cost, including service and shipping fees: about $1,050.

Face value for tickets ranges from $26 to $56.

The Disney Channel show "Hannah Montana" chronicles the life of Miley Stewart , who lives a double life as a rock star. Singer/actress Miley Cyrus , who portrays Hannah and is the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus , will make 54 stops on her "Best of Both Worlds" tour.

Peraldo's 6-year-old daughter, Leah Shea, loves to talk about the show and asked for tickets for her birthday.

It wasn't the cost for those tickets that bothered Peraldo, who said she could afford them.

Little girls crying outside the Greensboro Coliseum last month because they couldn't get tickets bothered her.

And scalpers targeting a show adored by children bothered her.

"The kid doesn't understand that some company has quadrupled the price of the ticket and Mommy can't afford them," said Peraldo, 43.

The show hasn't sold out. TicketsNow.com was offering about 500 tickets Friday.

A Row 2 seat would get you close enough to see the sequins on the rock-star outfit worn by Hannah Montana . But it would cost you $1,552.

"There's tickets up to $3,000," said Stacey Montgomery, 36, of Rural Hall . She went online and her husband manned the phone when tickets went on sale for Greensboro's concert. By the time they got through, about 15 minutes after the sale started, there weren't three seats together that they could buy for daughter Sydney's 10th birthday present.

"As much as we'd like for her to go," Montgomery said, "I'm not paying that much money."

Frustrated, Montgomery complained to the attorney general's office. She hasn't received a reply.

Parents have complained in other states, too.

Arkansas launched an investigation into online ticket scalping Wednesday, and a lawsuit is possible, Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for the attorney general, said Friday. N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper's office did not return a phone message left Friday. TicketsNow did not return a phone call or an e-mail.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon filed lawsuits Thursday against three online ticket brokers, including TicketsNow.com. He also arranged a deal to release another 2,000 tickets for two concerts in that state. Buyers of those extra tickets will have to show identification and the credit card they used to purchase the tickets at the concert, an effort to discourage scalpers.

"It still makes me mad," Montgomery said, "that these people can do it and get away with it."

* Scalpers are asking for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars for sought-after Hannah Montana seats.


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