TICKETMASTER RANT
Most venues in NY only offer online booking through one of a handful of ticket agencies, and so a few weeks ago the TH purchased tickets online for us to see Avishai Cohen and the Bad Plus at Irving Plaza. I'm astounded by the additional charges involved in online ticket purchases here - for starters there is always something called a 'convenience charge' slapped on top of the ticket price, which recently at BB Kings (also Ticketmaster), cost me something like 7 dollars per ticket! This is apparently for the 'convenience' of being able to book tickets in your own home...? Uh? Doesn't online booking actually SAVE ticket agencies money as they don't have to sell from outlets (which means rent) or through staff (who need salaries)? But in addition to that, there is also something called the 'order processing charge', which for these particular concerts came to an additional $9.20.
To cut a long story short, we found out a couple of days before the gig, quite by accident ie. through a friend, that the Avishai Cohen gig was cancelled. We subsequently found out on the actual day of the Bad Plus gig that that too was cancelled. And how did we find out? By accident, as I had logged onto the Bad Plus blog!
On receiving our refunds, (which incidentally involved US having to call Ticketmaster), we noticed that there was still a charge of $9.20. Now I wouldn't even mind this if they had bothered to send us notification by email of the cancellations, but we received NOT A WORD. How difficult is it to email a cancellation notification to ticket holders? It is not difficult. I know this because I've worked in box offices and ticket agencies. With the technology they possess, it takes one person approximately 5 minutes to press about 3 buttons.
We never got a reason for the cancellations, we are $9.20 down, and the promoter and band are also down because had we known in advance about the Bad Plus cancellation we would have gone out of our way to see them at Carnegie Hall a couple of days before. Oh, and we are also dissatisfied pissed off customers.
And whilst we're on the subject, it seems that everyone in the world is entitled to use your email address if you've purchased tickets with this rip-off company, EXCEPT it seems, if it is going to be useful to the ticket-holder.
And they call this the customer service capital of the World.........
To cut a long story short, we found out a couple of days before the gig, quite by accident ie. through a friend, that the Avishai Cohen gig was cancelled. We subsequently found out on the actual day of the Bad Plus gig that that too was cancelled. And how did we find out? By accident, as I had logged onto the Bad Plus blog!
On receiving our refunds, (which incidentally involved US having to call Ticketmaster), we noticed that there was still a charge of $9.20. Now I wouldn't even mind this if they had bothered to send us notification by email of the cancellations, but we received NOT A WORD. How difficult is it to email a cancellation notification to ticket holders? It is not difficult. I know this because I've worked in box offices and ticket agencies. With the technology they possess, it takes one person approximately 5 minutes to press about 3 buttons.
We never got a reason for the cancellations, we are $9.20 down, and the promoter and band are also down because had we known in advance about the Bad Plus cancellation we would have gone out of our way to see them at Carnegie Hall a couple of days before. Oh, and we are also dissatisfied pissed off customers.
And whilst we're on the subject, it seems that everyone in the world is entitled to use your email address if you've purchased tickets with this rip-off company, EXCEPT it seems, if it is going to be useful to the ticket-holder.
And they call this the customer service capital of the World.........
posted by jazzshark at 10:19 AM
1 Comments:
Mention the name of your lawyer re $9.20 charge..... that seems to be the only language people understand here!
Or else let's organise a parade for customer's rights.
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