Ticketmaster Makes Ticket-Selling Falcons Fan Wait 10 Days For Funds
Jeremy sold his Atlanta Falcons game tickets through Ticketmaster, the NFL's official ticket reseller. Ticketmaster's FAQ say the money should have been deposited into his account within five business days, but it took longer than that, and Jeremy had to hold the ticketing monolith's hand throughout the process and get an agent to manually authorize his payment.
He writes:
I am an Atlanta Falcons season ticket holder. The Falcons, and perhaps the entire NFL, has partnered with Ticketmaster to be the official ticket reseller. Through the Falcons website, you are able to connect to the NFL Ticket Exchange website at Ticketmaster.com. I set up to sell my two tickets at two separate games. The set up was painless, getting payment for the sale was not. ... The tickets are sent by email, so this should be instantaneous.
I posted and sold all of the tickets on August 25. On my account page, under status for each order it said, "Finalized." This would indicate to any reasonable person that payment should now be received. On August 28, I contacted customer service to see why I had not received payment yet. I was told that the Falcons had trouble getting the ticket information to Ticketmaster. This was understandable, however, Ticketmaster made no attempt to email season ticket holders of the issue. I was told that payment on one of the two orders was triggered, and the other one should be done soon.
On September 1, I contacted customer service to see if the other transaction had been triggered. I was told that it had not been. Apparently, the only person who could do that was out of the office on September 1 and September 2. I was told that no one else could handle triggering the payment. On September 2, I called again to request that my commission fees be refunded for the lack of communication. I was told that that would not happen (a whopping $7.50). The supervisor I spoke to, Armando, said he would trigger the payment that night. I asked how this was possible since I was told only one person had the authority to do that, and he was gone. He indicated that he was given that authority just that day because of the person's absence. It was after hours, so the bank wouldn't get the information until Thursday, Sept. 3. Still no email regarding the delays.
I received the following email today:
Your payment for PO Z 3133554 was issued by direct deposit today. If you have any questions or concerns please call 888-635-5944. thank you.
Definitely something to keep in mind if you want to turn your tickets around on Ticketmaster for some quick money.
(Photo: phototaker)
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Comments:
It's heartening to see that Ticketmaster doesn't just target beret-wearing, black-clad, finger-snapping hipsters beating on their mad bongo skins. Hey, Daddio, beating on granny is copecetic, too!
My entire opinion on this issue depends on if Jeremy is a fan who just couldn't attend the game or a professional scalper. (FWIW, I've been on the New Orleans Saints waiting list for five years-- I can't get season tix, but I can buy single tickets from season ticket holders in New York and California who 'just couldn't make it to the Superdome' but are nice enough to unload tix on me for 3-4x face value)
If this guy is just a fan who couldn't make it, then damn Ticketmaster to hell.
If he's one of the sleezy opportunists that scalp, all I have to say is there is no honor among theives.
@riroon: So thief = someone who sells something to another person for a price that they are willing to pay even if it is above the origional purchase price?
@Grabraham: Thief = someone who inserts himself/herself into a process with inherently limited demand solely for the purpose of cashing in as a middleman, and causes people who actually want to attend to miss out on the privilege of doing so at the actual event cost. He stole their opportunity and their money.
I personally think ALL tickets should require a "name on ticket" be filled out at time of order, and admittance be allowed only with matching ID. Kill the whole resale market. It hurts some good folks who just need to unload tickets due to changed plans, but it's a net gain for the event-attending public.
Five business days versus ten business days isn't really that big a difference, but with everything being electronic, and the funds being sent by direct deposit, why is there even a five day wait? Once TicketBastards identifies the tickets as genuine and receives the funds from the buyer, other than their desire to use the float for five days, I can't see a reason for the delay.
@punkrawka: And no more radio contests for tickets, reserving boxes for corporate events, people like this guy who honestly can't attend and just want to transfer the ticket to someone else...
It's unfortunate, but what can you do? Turn away anyone who wants to buy 20 tickets even if they claim to have a legitimate purpose? If the event managers really wanted to stop scalping, they'd institute a system, but they just want all of the tickets sold. What happens after that is none of their concern. People buy scalped tickets. If they stopped doing that, then the scalpers would lose their investments and have to quit. The economics totally support the current system.
I thought Ticketbastard got fixed in the 90's when one of those plaid wearing, angry lyric singing grunge bands from Seattle took them on. Toe Jam... Minne Pearl... what was their name?
Yeah, that really helped out the consumers.
@Nidoking:
But those of us who buy scalped tickets do so because tickets to things we want to attend sell out so quickly we don't have a chance. It's a Catch-22.
@H3ion: 5 business days versus 10 business days is a whole week. Enough of a difference to me, if I'm the one waiting for the money.
@tbax929: It's impossible to change an established system if people aren't willing to make sacrifices to fight against it. If you weren't willing to pay for scalped tickets to attend those events, you wouldn't be buying them. It's not a choice of where to buy tickets, but a choice to buy tickets at all.
If the price of bread suddenly jumped to thousands of dollars a loaf, all other things being equal, I suspect that people would buy significantly more of other types of food. Nobody's forcing you to attend events that sell all their tickets to scalpers.
@punkrawka: Ticketmaster = someone who inserts himself/herself into a process with inherently limited demand solely for the purpose of cashing in as a middleman, and causes people who actually want to attend to miss out on the privilege of doing so at the actual event cost. He stole their opportunity and their money.
FTFY.
@Grabraham: He didn't say scalpers were thieves, he said they were sleazy opportunists - which they are. Just because these jerks who buy up tickets in bulk and sell them for double the money are making bank doesn't mean it's just or ethical - they're still making it more difficult for legitimate fans, many with limited discretionary income, to attend the event at a more reasonable price.
The OP doesn't sound like a scalper though, so I'm not sure why he contributed to the evil that is Ticketmaster rather than just selling on craigslist.
I'm not in favor of killing the whole resale market like @punkrawka, because I've been able to purchase cheap tickets before from friends who had something come up and couldn't attend a concert, event etc, but I am in favor of greater regulation of the big ticket companies that encourage scalping (like in the recent Springsteen ticket fiasco) and are making live entertainment in the US a commodity only the very rich can afford.
@lmarconi: The tickets are probably held at the door or something equally assinine to make Ticketmaster more money
@Nidoking: Well, wouldn't it be easy to have some generic things, like "PROMO" as the name on the ticket? (that's actually similar to what one local station does when they give away tickets to Live Nation events (which do have the original purchasers name on the ticket))
@H3ion: There's always a delay between when a card is charged and when it gets deposited in the chargers account. This delay has a number of factors including type of charge, means of transmission and the issuing bank.
While understandably consumers are irked when they see a hold on a charge, that doesn't equate to the company actually having the money deposited.
For instance in the case of an e-check it will almost always take more than a week to clear.
In this case, the OP was taking advantage of the ticketmaster market to increase the number of people bidding on his tickets. Not to mention the convenience of ticket master handling the CC transaction, the distribution of the ticket and the hosting of the web content. Seems like $7.50 is a reasonable charge for that.
@ugly: I don't think anyone was complaining about the $7.50 charge (and I agree with you that's it not unreasonable). The issue really is why it should take ten business days or two full weeks to remit the funds, particularly when the mail is not a factor.
Ticket scalping wouldn't exist if the tickets were priced properly initially. Most companies (NFL, music acts etc), though, are afraid of the bad PR if they did raise prices to the level they should be priced at.
Obviously, this really only applies to events where supply doesn't meet demand.
Ahhh... so I thought the point of prohibiting the reselling of tickets is to ensure fairness among fans, so everyone has access to tickets for a fair value (not that I'd call the grossly overpriced tickets the NFL sells a fair value, but I'm just an Average Joe, not a business tycoon). Instead, it seems to be to give a regulated monopoly deal to Ticketmaster, which then screws up on actually following through and paying the consumer their money.
Ughhh... why hasn't the NFL been investigated by Congress for monopoly/anti-trust yet, anyway?
@lmarconi: Or even legal in some places. I know it's that way in Chicago, but don't certain places have laws where you can't sell a ticket for higher than the amount on the ticket? I'm not against people with season tickets selling some of the games, I'm buying a couple tickets for a Colts game from a guy at work who bought season tickets. I hate ticket brokers who buy all the good tickets first, before fans, and then try to sell them for a huge markup.
@Red-headed bookworm: It's also illegal here in MA but that doesn't stop people from doing it. I live near Fenway Park and the professional brokers always slime out of their holes 1-2 hours before the game. They get around the law by yelling (very loudly and professionally and obviously, often from on top of a box or something) "Anybody selling tickets?" to anyone who will listen to them. Pretty much everyone knows by now that it's code for "I have tickets to sell."
Pretty sure it's just the Falcons/Georgia Dome. The Patriots had a re-sell system that I had used before that didn't use Ticketmaster, because I don't think that Gillette -- then -- used Ticketmaster. Perhaps it's different now tho