Ticketmaster is the largest company of it’s kind in the United States, used by tens of millions of Americans every year for events from rock concerts to football games. Unfortunately, a significant data breach exposed the personal information of over 500 million customers.
Are you one of them? If so, you may be eligible for a class action lawsuit.
Ticketmaster Data Breach
In May of 2024, Ticketmaster discovered a breach in a cloud database. While Ticketmaster reports that customers’ accounts are safe, they may be entitled to compensation thanks to a class action lawsuit filed in a California court.
This database contained limited personal information of some customers who had purchased tickets to events in North America (U.S., Canada and/or Mexico). This included email, phone number, encrypted credit card information. It also concluded some personal information provided to Ticketmaster.
“We take data protection very seriously and have been working with the relevant authorities, including law enforcement, as well as credit card companies and banks,” Ticketmaster said in response. “We are offering relevant customers a free 12-month identity monitoring service with a leading provider.”
How To Join The Class Action Lawsuit Against Ticketmaster
In its simplest form, a class action lawsuit is when a group of people – plaintiffs – all file a lawsuit together as one group, or when one person files a lawsuit on behalf of a group.
In this case, plaintiffs have brought suit against Ticketmaster for a heightened risk of fraud due to the company’s handling of personal identifying information.
“Defendants disregarded the rights of Plaintiffs and Class Members by, among other things, intentionally, willfully, recklessly, or negligently failing to take adequate and reasonable measures to ensure its data systems were protected against unauthorized intrusions,” the Ticketmaster class action states.
Find out if you are eligible here.
How Do Class Action Lawsuits Work?
Class action law has evolved over the last few decades. But there are specific rules binding class actions, known as Rule 23 in the federal rules for civil procedures. The Legal Information Institute lays out what the court must find in order to approve a class action:
- The number of class members renders it impracticable to join them in the action
- The class members’ claims share common questions of law or fact
- The claims or defenses of the proposed class representatives are typical of those for the rest of the class, and
- The proposed class representatives will adequately protect the interests of the entire class.
In short, multiple plaintiffs must all have sufficiently similar claims of damage, such that a ruling would largely have the same affect on all class members. The question is then before the court: have all these plaintiffs indeed suffered similar harm from the defendant?
How Long Do Class Action Lawsuits Take
Again, the answer is: it depends on the case.
In some cases, the answer is 10 minutes! Defendants can try to end the case before it even begins by settling with the plaintiffs – typically this means payments. According to Top Class Actions, settlements can typically take up to nine months or a year.
However, if class actions go to trial, the timeline becomes years long – typically two or three years, according to the Cochran Firm.
