Vivid Seats

One of these subject lines accurately tells consumers about the terms of a last-minute offer for Anaheim Ducks tickets from online ticket reseller Vivid Seats; the other is the one Vivid Seats actually sent to subscribers the day of the Ducks’ home opener earlier this week. Can you correctly guess which is which?

1. LAST CALL: All Ducks Ticket Orders Over $250 Before Fees Are $25 Off
2. LAST CALL: All Ducks Tickets Are $25 Off

If you picked the first one as the accurate terms of the offer, congrats, you’re a winner. Which is more than can be said of the actual recipients of the email, including Ducks fan and TINA.org reader (we’re assuming in that order), Patrick J.

Patrick alerted TINA.org to the misleading subject line as well as hidden fine print in the body of the email. Despite communicating that not some, but all Ducks tickets were $25 off in the subject of the message, terms snuck in the body of the email severely limited the offer:

$25 off order values over $250 before fees.

Not surprisingly, that’s not what Patrick was banking on. He told TINA.org how he felt it should have went down.

“If it were $25 off all tickets, if I ordered four tickets at $100 each, I should get them for $75 each,” Patrick said. “Instead, I would only get $25 off the entire order [totaling around $400].”

TINA.org reached out to Vivid Seats, which describes itself as “the largest independent secondary marketplace for tickets to live sports, concerts and theater events,” for comment. We’ve yet to hear back.

Find more of our coverage on ticket sellers here.