TicketsNow, a subsidiary of West Hollywood's Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc., has reached a settlement with the Illinois Attorney General's Office concerning complaints it deceptively sold overly priced tickets to concerts by Bruce Springsteen, Hannah Montana and other events.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan said her office documented that Rolling Meadows, Ill-based TicketsNow operated Web sites with domain names that misled customers into believing they were dealing with actual event operators and paying face-value prices, according to a Tuesday news release on her agency's Web site.

But instead, customers ended up paying higher resale prices. As part of the settlement TicketsNow disabled more than 100 Web sites, and will pay $50,000 for consumer fraud enforcement and education.

In addition, TicketsNow no longer will sell tickets to non-sporting events on any of its Web sites until after Ticketmaster makes the tickets available at face value to the general public, which will help curtail speculative ticket sales prior to the actual sale date set by Ticketmaster.

"This agreement will substantially impact how the TicketsNow online brokers market popular event tickets so that consumers clearly understand that they are making purchases from a ticket reseller at marked-up rates," Madigan said in a statement.

Ticketmaster shares closed down 14 cents, or 2 percent, to $6.42 on the Nasdaq.