Washington Attorney General's Office Looks Into Brown Paper Tickets, After Clients Complain About Not Receiving Funds

As BroadwayWorld reported in March, customers of ticketing agency Brown Paper Tickets have taken major issue after the company failed to pay for ticket sales of already-completed events. Now, many of the clients have turned to the Washington State Attorney General's Office to seek assistance in receiving their payment, according to the Seattle Times.

"My office received 33 complaints regarding Brown Paper Tickets," State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said last week. "That's a very large number of complaints in a relatively short period of time. We take this very seriously." Now, the number is up to 39.

BPT previously said in a statement to BroadwayWorld: "We are working to assist everyone as quickly as possible during these unprecedented and difficult times. All of our organizers will be paid for their successfully completed events, although payments will be delayed as we work through our backlog of cancellations and refunds. We are truly sorry for the difficulty this causes and are working to make things right."

One of the clients who has yet to receive payment, retired sportswriter Tracy Ringolsby, was told on Mach 6 that a check for $13,444 was on the way from BPT, after selling tickets through the site for a community event called Wyoming Day at the Rockies. The check never came.

Among the many other clients waiting for checks are Seattle-based Butoh performer Vanessa Skantze ($740); Some Theater Company from Bangor, Maine ($14,040); the Motion State Dance Festival of Providence, Rhode Island ($5,024).

In March, BPT's co-founder and president William Scott Jordan explained that the pandemic caused confusion within the site's system, due to the mass cancellation and postponement of events.

"It's a mess," Jordan told The Seattle Times in March. "Everybody will get paid - it's just going to take some time."

State Attorney Ferguson said that his office has been able to recover money for just two of the complainants they have received.

"While the outcomes for these two consumers are positive," he said, "many complaints remain unresolved."

Read more on Seattle Times.

Brown Paper Tickets has neglected to responded to BroadwayWorld's multiple requests for additional information.

Brown Paper Tickets provides complete ticketing services for events of all sizes. The company has averaged a 200 percent growth each year for the past ten years, with over 25,000 unique producers and more than 250,000 events ticketed. For more information, visit: https://www.brownpapertickets.com