New York Sacks Tampa Bay Buccaneers Ploy to Deny Giants' Fans Tickets to This Weekends Playoff Game
New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, citing concerns about consumer fraud and other improprieties and potential illegalities, has convinced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Ticketmaster to stop its policy of selling tickets to this Sunday's playoff game only to Florida residents. According to Cuomo, Ticketmaster's restriction of sales to one state was unprecedented. Attorney General Cuomo referred to "interstate commerce issues" and cited prohibitions against "states discriminating against other states' residents or impeding business by other states." The Bucs relented, sheepishly calling it "good will". Now all the Giants have to do is win the game. Mr. Cuomo, like his predecessor, now Governor Eliot Spitzer, has been very active in protecting the rights of consumers. Recent activity on his part includes an investigation against health insurers' physician ranking programs and an investigation of Facebook for inadequately policing of pornography, harassment and inappropriate behavior on its social networking site. The former investigation lead to a settlement with industry leader CIGNA Healthcare, and the latter investigation resulted in a settlement involving Facebook;'s implementation of numerous safeguards. The Attorney General's Office's official statement is as follows: "It has come to our attention that Ticketmaster had restricted sale of tickets for the upcoming New York Giants versus Tampa Bay Buccaneers football playoff game to be held in Florida this weekend. The Ticketmaster restriction allowed only Florida residents to purchase tickets. We believe Ticketmasters' restriction raises significant legal issues and was causing consumer frauds in schemes to circumvent the restriction. We contacted Ticketmaster about our concerns. Ticketmaster has agreed to immediately eliminate the Florida residency restrictions for purchasing tickets which will now be open to New York and New Jersey residents, as well as other states' residents. Ticketmaster agreed to immediately change their website to allow such sales to take place. We thank Ticketmaster for its cooperation."
