‘It wasn’t a concert’: Man calls out Spotify for allegedly scamming users with fake concerts
Should you be buying concert tickets through Spotify? The Swedish-based music streaming service is one of the most popular in the world, providing "100 million tracks, 6 million podcast titles, and 350,000 audiobooks" to its worldwide consumers, according to the company's website.
However, at least one TikToker is calling out the company's service for offering tickets to "shows" he alleges are suspect.
San Francisco-based TikToker Tallneil (@tallneil) accused Spotify of bait-and-switch tactics in a video posted on April 30. The video has over 29,000 views as of publication.
"So, basically got scammed by Spotify six months ago with this fake Summer Walker concert," Neil claims in the video.
How is it a scam?
The "concert" in question appears to be a Nov. 19 event called "The Summer Ain't Over Party with Summer Walker." Neil claims the R&B artist was present at the event but that "it was never supposed to be a concert; it was a club appearance."
"She never performed," he says. "She just showed up and kinda stood around and walked around while people took pictures." He also says, "She was only there for a minute. She showed up past midnight. We were there like hours before that."
"But from the email I got from Spotify, [it was] being marketed as a concert," he says. He points out what looks to be a screenshot of a Spotify webpage about the event, which has Walker as the "Headliner" and sole entry under the "Artists Performing" category.
San Francisco entertainment outlets Do the Bay and True Skool sold tickets to the Summer Ain't Over Party, but both websites listed Walker as "host" rather than headliner.
Neil says he received another email from Spotify advertising a concert featuring Tony Bennett: "It says Tony Bennett, August 2nd, in San Francisco. Dude, Tony Bennett died last year."
Spotify is promoting an event called "Totally Tony: A Birthday Salute To Tony Bennett," featuring San Francisco-based singer Jonathan Poretz. However, the event description on Spotify's website does not mention Poretz or that the event is a tribute concert. Instead, it simply lists the event as "Tony Bennett."
Bennett is also listed as "Headliner."
"Wherever they're scraping their concert data from, like, whatever websites they're just pulling this information in from, they need to fix that or get a human to review these emails," Neil says.
"Get someone to look this over and say, 'Hey, Tony Bennett's dead,'" he adds.
@tallneil #greenscreen ♬ original sound - tallneil
The Daily Dot has reached out to Spotify for a statement via its website's Press Center.
Neil's not the only one who got bamboozled
Several of Neil's viewers reported similar dealings with Spotify.
One viewer, _applebarrel (@_applebarrel), wrote, "I got an email saying that Jeff Buckley was supposed to perform in San Francisco like I hope not."
Ashleyktrann (@ashleyktrann) stated, "omg i went to the summer walker one and left at 11:30!! spotify refunded so fast!!!"
"There was a Frank ocean one a while back, turns out it was an orchestra playing his songs," another viewer claimed.
Hannah wrote, "Same thing happened in my area with Beyoncé a couple days after Cowboy Carter came out."
One viewer blamed the lack of oversight on the company's massive layoffs in 2023. "It's almost like laying off 17% of your employees will backfire eventually," they wrote.
Spotify did lay off approximately 17 percent of its staff, roughly 1,500 people, last year, according to Fast Company.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Neil via TikTok direct message for further comment.
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