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Law Office of James Swiderski

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Get YOUR MONEY Back!

You have a right to a refund. Here is a way to get it.

Read the following disclosures about what I am proposing to do for you to try and get a refund of the ticket price for your cancelled or indefinitely postponed event with Ticketmaster or StubHub.

1. If you bought your tickets pre-Covid, the contract you signed with Ticketmaster or StubHub provided that you would get a full refund from them if the event for which you bought the ticket was cancelled.

2. Ticketmaster and StubHub have since refused to honor that contract. They breached their contractual obligation.

3. To protect themselves against class actions generally, Ticketmaster and Stubhub had an "arbitration clause" in the contract you originally signed. This forbids you from going to Court and requires that you submit any disputes between yourself and them to a private arbitrator. By doing this, they get around a California rule that says a business can't make consumers waive their right to be part of a class action. If an arbitration clause is used, they can and do require that you waive your right to bring or even be a part of a class action against the company.

4. All class actioins filed against these companies seeking refunds for Covid realted cancellations have been dismissed by the Judges hearing the cases. No class actions are allowed because of the arbitration requirement.

5. The reason the Courts accept that arbitration is fair is because the company, here Ticketmaster and StubHub have to pay ALL of the costs of the private arbitrator, and the consumer, YOU, are limited to pay only $200 - $250 or even ZERO if you earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level. The Company pays the remaining amount which can be $5000 - $10000 for a single day of a trial, which they CAN'T get back from you, WIN or LOSE the case. (They can get it back if the case filed against them is found to be frivilous.)

6. This gives you enormous leverage for settlement.

7. With the above points in mind, the plan to get your money back is to credibly threaten to file a meritorious arbitration claim if a full refund is not provided. You can do this yourself if you choose.

8. Or you can hire me to:

A. Send a demand to Ticketmaster and / or StubHub to refund all of your money, plus pay Attorney $200 for his time in helping you.

B. If no refund is made in 30 days time, Attorney will file an arbitration claim for you.

C. Attorney will represent you in a breach of contract claim in the arbitration from filing until the arbitrator makes a final award. To keep costs down, Attorney will handle everything remotely, and will appear at the hearing only by phone or by video conference if available. If an in person hearing is required by order of the Arbitrator, YOU will show up to a local hearing site near you alone, with me available by phone or video conference. The only argument the claim will make is that Ticketmaster's and / or StubHub's refusal to refund your money was a breach of contract.

D. If you win, the arbitrator will award recovery of your arbitration filing fee of $200- $250 in addition to the amount of your refund. That is or course, IF you didn't qualify for the waiver of th filing fee because you earned less than 300 percent of the federal poverty limit for your houshold size. If you lose, your $200-$250 filing fee will be lost.

E. How does Attorney get paid? I get NOTHING, unless I get you a negotiated refund that you agree to. If the company agrees to refund an amount that is agreeable to you, my fee is $200 and will be paid out of the money the company sends to me in settlement of your claim. If we are forced to file an arbitration claim, I will receive $200 payable out of any amount awarded by the Arbitrator, or agreed to be paid by the company after we file. The order of payment out of any amount collected from the company will be first, $200 to me, then the remainder, including reimbursement of the $200- $250 filing fee to YOU. Atttorney will also receive any award of Attorneys fees that the Arbitrator may award. To obtain Attorneys' fees a claim other than breach of contract will have to be made. Attorney will inform Client about this claim once the arbitration is filed and Client agrees to permit any additional claim to be made whereby Attorney might have a right to recover attorneys fees.

So in summary, you hire me to make a claim, and the most you are out if you lose is the $200- $250 filing fee (if you don't earn less than 300% of the federal poverty level to qualify to file for FREE). If you win, you get money back, with a maximum of $200 deducted to pay for Attorney's services.

Because of the enormouse leverage involved, the company is highly likely to settle by paying you a full refund plus $200 to be used to pay me.

F. One important caveat. If you win the arbitration, the other side should pay up, but if it doesn't you need to convert the arbitration award into a Court judgment. This requires another filing fee in California Court of roughly $400, and you need to serve them with a copy for another $50 in costs. These costs will all be included along with the arbitrator award in a final judgment that can be used to levy their assets and force payment. But ATTORNEY is NOT agreeing to represent Client in this part of the action unless a seperate agreement is negotiated and signed.

To QUALIFY TO SUE UNDER THESE CONDITIONS, you MUST have bought your tickets pre-Covid for an event that was cancelled due to Covid, under a contract that provided for refunds for cancellations.

Ready to get your money back? Let's leverage their own tactics against them. Take the first step now.

To proceed, fill out the form below and submit to me. Once I approve you, you must send in payment for the filing fee if you do not qualify for the waiver of the $200-$250 filing fee. This is critical as I must have 100% credibility with the companies we are suing for this strategy to work. They must know that if settlement is not made in 30 days I WILL file an arbitration claim and go all the way to a hearing and judgment if necessary. I can't do that if I have to wait on payment from Clients that may change their mind when the company refuses the initial demand.

Thanks.

Jim Swiderski,

State Bar Number 185761

Verify my law license and lack of disciplinary history at CalBar.org.

Need a Special Needs Trust?

If you have a loved one who is currently receiving Supplemental Security Income or SSI from Social Security due to a disability, then they are subject to strict rules about how much property or money they can own and still keep their eligibility for the payments. Remember, SSI is a "means tested" benefit, meaning you have to be both disabled under the Social Security definition, and be "poor" under their regulations. SSI is different from SSDI, which is paid to a disabled worker on account of their work history, and does not have any limit on what kind of assets the recipient can own.

If the person on SSI gets a gift, or an inheritance that puts them over the legal limits, they can lose eligibility until those extra funds are gone.

To prevent this, you can avoid giving money to the person eligible for SSI. If its a relative, say a niece or nephew, you can provide in your will that you will leave your money to someone else with a request that they use it to take care of the relative on SSI. This can work, but it risks the money being spent by the other relative, or being taken by the other relative's creditors if they are sued.

Setting up a trust, and giving the inheritance or gift to the trust, means the money HAS TO be used for the benefit of the SSI recipient. It is drafted in a way that says while it has to be used for the SSI beneficiary's benefit, it is up to someone else, the person called the Trustee, to decide if, when, and how that money is used. This makes it OK with Social Security. They won't count the trust or the money in it as an asset of the SSI beneficiary as long as it is set up this way.

The rules get more complicated if the money or property involved was ever properly owed to the SSI beneficiary. If he or she could have sued to get it, then its their property, and its more complicated to put it into a trust, but it can still be done.

These trusts are simple in theory, but they have complications. There are many means tested benefits, not only SSI. Section 8 housing, Medicaid, some forms of Medi-Cal even after Obamacare, and all have different rules. In planning to leave money to someone, the person giving the money also has to do some planning. Should they leave the money now, or later when they pass on? How much? What types of property? What about tax planning?

These are complicated issues. They can result in "planning paralysis." By all means, go see a specialist in estate planning. I can refer you. Most specialists these days will include a Special Needs Trust provision in their plan documents that will take care of SSI beneficiaries needs. But the process will take money.

In the meantime, my offer is to set up a very simple Special Needs Trust that will work in the meantime to ensure that your loved one does not lose his SSI benefits due to a gift of money you want to give him or her now, or later by leaving it to them in an inheritance.

It is not recommended for receiving assets that could be claimed by the beneficiary as rightfully paid to him or her, e.g., a personal injury settlement fund, workers compensation benefits, money they won in a lottery or already received from someone else. These funds have to be dealt with separately.

It is recommended for someone who plans on leaving some money or other property to an SSI recipient, but doesn't have allot of money to worry about tax planning or to pay for a comprehensive estate plan. It includes a simple will (or amendment to a will or trust) and a stand alone Special Needs Trust.

I, a licensed California Attorney will prepare the trust and get it to you for signature, give you a basic idea of how it will all work, and set you up with a taxpayer ID for the trust so that you can open up a bank account in the name of the trust to hold any money for the SSI beneficiary and trust beneficiary. I also mail a copy to Social Security disclosing its existence and explaining its exemption from being considered as an asset of the SSI recipient.

The fee is a flat fee of $500. The trust and service is basic. I do not recommend it for planned gifts in excess of $100,000. It is worthless if you don't make sure to change your will and insurance policies and retirement or other benefit plans to pay out to the trust instead of to the beneficiary directly.

If you are interested, contact me via the form below: