SEATTLE, WA - DECEMBER 10: Fans cheer during Deck The Hall Ball hosted by 107.7 The End at WaMu Theater on December 10, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Mat Hayward/Getty Images)
SEATTLE - Seattle ticketing company Brown Paper Tickets has agreed to pay $9 million in restitution to an estimated 45,000 customers.
The Seattle Times reports the payments will go to ticket buyers owed refunds and event organizers owed box-office revenue largely because of problems that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Washington State Office of the Attorney General filed a consent decree in King County Superior Court on Monday after filing a lawsuit on behalf of customers.
Some of those customers were ticket-buyers who wanted their money back or wanted to donate the cost of their tickets for canceled events, many of which were fundraisers. The company also failed to pay organizers for remote events that took place despite the pandemic or had occurred before its onset.
Founded in 2000, Brown Paper Tickets initially served as a virtual box office for small theaters and other nonprofits.
In recent years, Brown Paper Tickets has expanded operations globally, with support services in Central America, Africa, Europe and Asia.
At the time of the beginning of the pandemic last year, Brown Paper Tickets founder and president William Scott Jordan said so many events were being postponed and canceled that the company lost control of its cash flow and financial machinery.
The attorney general’s office said: "It appeared to us that the company’s internal accounting and payment system was overwhelmed when the pandemic hit."