{"id":2101,"date":"2025-07-21T07:49:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T07:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/07\/21\/overseas-ticket-company-allegedly-scams-customers-buying-tickets-to-hill-auditorium\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T07:49:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T07:49:05","slug":"overseas-ticket-company-allegedly-scams-customers-buying-tickets-to-hill-auditorium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/07\/21\/overseas-ticket-company-allegedly-scams-customers-buying-tickets-to-hill-auditorium\/","title":{"rendered":"Overseas ticket company allegedly scams customers buying tickets to Hill Auditorium\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em>This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigan.gov\/ag\/news\/press-releases\/2025\/07\/18\/ag-nessel-launches-investigation-into-overseas-ticket-resale-scheme-targeting-michigan-venue\">announced<\/a> in a press release Friday afternoon an investigation into <a href=\"https:\/\/puretonicmarketing.com\/\">Pure Tonic Marketing<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketsqueeze.com\/\">Ticket Squeeze<\/a> for allegedly scamming customers trying to buy tickets to events at the <a href=\"https:\/\/smtd.umich.edu\/facilities\/hill-auditorium\/\">University of Michigan\u2019s Hill Auditorium<\/a>. Nessel was alerted to the potential scam after receiving a complaint from the <a href=\"https:\/\/ums.org\/?gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=1635479881&amp;gbraid=0AAAAAD3Cvd3MUTPFTsXtNixVb54gKNcoC&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjw4efDBhATEiwAaDBpbliknYsgSmn4Z8v3mu2FunGHJWiQyrITc5Wk_2OnWVeCgFmIEmJsnhoCl2YQAvD_BwE\">University Musical Society<\/a>, a performing arts presenter affiliated with the University, which sells official Hill Auditorium tickets on its website.<\/p>\n<p>The University previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wlns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2025\/07\/Pure-Tonic-Petition-for-Civil-Investigation-Redacted.pdf\">won a domain dispute<\/a> against Pure Tonic Marketing, an international company based in Seychelles, after they advertised tickets to performances at Hill Auditorium through a <a href=\"http:\/\/thehillauditorium.com\">fraudulent web address<\/a>. Pure Tonic Marketing was forced to redirect the fraudulent web address to the UMS official website. Following this domain dispute, however, the web address <a href=\"http:\/\/annarborconcerts.com\">annarborconcerts.com<\/a>, run by Ticket Squeeze, has emerged and begun engaging in the same scam.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to the press release, the scam involved redirecting customers from the seemingly official website to the Ticket Squeeze website and reselling the tickets at a significantly higher price.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cOne consumer, believing he was purchasing tickets from an official source, reported paying $1,263.95 for two tickets to a Berlin Philharmonic performance through the website,\u201d the press release read. \u201cThe same tickets were listed at $175 each through the official UMS website.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The press release stated that Nessel is currently working to identify the operator of the Ticket Squeeze website and determine whether other venues have also been targeted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the Hill Auditorium was the focus of the initial complaint, other entertainment venues may have also been targeted by the alleged scheme,\u201d the press release read. \u201cThrough this investigation, the Department of Attorney General hopes to learn whether additional imposter websites have been used by these entities to deceive consumers statewide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the press release, Sara Billmann, UMS vice president of marketing and communications, said ticket scams are incredibly harmful to consumers and industry workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe rise of ticket resellers who purchase tickets solely for the purpose of making money off of unsuspecting customers has been a scourge in the performing arts industry,\u201d Billmann said. \u201cIn addition to the direct harm caused to customers by predatory secondary market pricing and absurdly high fees, nonprofit arts organizations are also seriously impacted, both financially and reputationally.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><em>Summer News Editor Alyssa Tisch can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/news-briefs\/overseas-ticket-company-allegedly-scams-customers-buying-tickets-to-hill-auditorium\/mailto:tischaa@umich.edu\"><em>tischaa@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced in a press release Friday afternoon an investigation into Pure Tonic Marketing and Ticket Squeeze for allegedly scamming customers trying to buy tickets to events at the University of Michigan\u2019s Hill Auditorium. Nessel was alerted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2341,2344,1261,2340,2343,863,2339,2342,1579,1084],"class_list":{"0":"post-2101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-allegedly","9":"tag-auditorium","10":"tag-buying","11":"tag-company","12":"tag-customers","13":"tag-hill","14":"tag-overseas","15":"tag-scams","16":"tag-ticket","17":"tag-tickets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2103,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101\/revisions\/2103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}