Voting on this round is completely free! You just pay shipping, handling, service charges, print-at-home surcharges, voting tax, a 7% resort fee, and a $25 “because we can” charge.
Ticketmaster, is becoming the Susan Lucci of WCIA, with several straight appearances in the Final Four, including a Final Death Match loss to Comcast in 2010. It just can’t seem to get over the hump and actually win the Golden Poo.
But it is once again off to a great start, having violently called in Sallie Mae’s loan in Round One.
Meanwhile, its similarly fee-friendly opponent Spirit Airlines has already shown that fierce WCIA competitors come in small packages by taking out super-sized airline Delta in the first round.
Perhaps when the Spirit CEO called his company the “most consumer-friendly airline,” he meant that the airline made angry customers laugh and smile by calling itself consumer-friendly?
Will the rookie be able to spoil the veteran’s hopes at finally having a Golden Poo of its own? Vote, and then pay the mandatory $5 optional results fee to if your vote counted.
(Voting on this poll will close at 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday, March 23.)
This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2012 series. The companies competing for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. See the entire WCIA 2012 bracket and schedule of match-ups HERE.
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I don’t fly, but I do go to concerts, so this one’s a no-brainer for me.
They’re both crappy. Spirit admits to the controversy of their ways of business. Ticketmaster tries to rationalize it. I say TicketMaster is worse.
I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but it looks like Ticketmaster has stopped charging to print your own tickets.
They still get my vote, though.
The charge is still reflected on the Wikipedia page. I assume if they did get rid of the charge they would have had someone update the Wikipedia site.
Ticketmaster charges a fee for ticket delivery, whether the tickets are mailed to the customer, printed out at home, or collected from the venue. The charge for printing out the ticket at home is often higher than the fee to have the ticket physically mailed to you.
Let me rephrase this then. On the screen where you pick the delivery option, there is no added fee for regular USPS delivery or printing out at home. I remember there being an added fee in the past for printing at home.
I bought two tickets for Hot Chip at the Fox Theater in Oakland on 9/11 yesterday morning. $2.50 each for PDFs… US Mail was free.
Spirit affects a larger portion of the economy, more people, and is bringing gloom on a once fairly reasonable industry.
Nonsense. Spirit is pretty much just American Airlines with dingier planes.
TicketBastard FTW
With Spirit, you can choose usually another airline. With TicketBastard, you usually have no choice.
With BoA, you can choose another bank. With BP, you can choose another gas company.
Spirit is inspiring others and leading them on the path to greater fees and lowered service.
Those are both true, but he was referring to this specific poll. If you want to go to a concert in your area, and that venue uses Ticketmaster, then you’re SOL.
Oil and gas are fungible commodities. There is no way to specifically boycott oil resources provided by BP except by boycotting all petroleum products.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility
I find those examples to be troublesome. You may be able to pick your bank, but mortgages are transferred all the time. In addition, BofA never let the fact that they don’t own your mortgage stop them from trying to foreclose!
For BP, you can pick your gas station, but it may not always be clear who is actually supplying that station. In addition, no one picked BP to take a run and destroying an ecosystem.
Here’s one thing Spirit does do… brings down fares in markets where it competes with AAwful Airlines, Hellta, JetPoo, Poo-nited, Suckwest, or US Failways.
I don’t fly or go to concerts but I voted for Ticketmaster basically because it seems impossible to get away from them.
Spirit has many competitors and therefore consumers have many alternatives, however Ticketmaster is practically a monopoly and they have some evil practices. For that reason they get my vote.
This one’s a no contest – too bad, Spirit (and most of the airline industry in general) is worthy of the Golden Poo
Ticketmaster are the A-holes that started the “convenience fee” surcharge.
Now almost every venue does it, regardless of how you purchase your tickets.
never flown spirit, but ticketmaster is the reason i’m not going to see iron maiden. fuck paperless ticketing
I’ve never used either of these companies. I’m gonna vote Ticketmaster anyway….
Too bad Ticketmaster doesn’t sell airplane tickets. Wow can you imagine the fees!
Except for one thing–if TicketBastard got into the airline business, they’d now have to be upfront of all those hidden fees in advertising those fares, unlike how they sell concert tickets. At least then, considering TB’s MO, you’ll know right there and then to tell them where to stick it and head for a competitor. Alas, TicketBastard’s principal business is bending you over if you want to see a concert, a sporting event etc. where you have no other option than to grab the KY Jelly and plead with them to not use the fire extinguisher as they’re inserting something up your bunghole.
It’s Ticketmaster by far. Only the US Government gets away with levying large ephemeral fees. Like Income Tax for example.
Next year the US Government, or one of its branches, in this contest.
Ticketmaster defeated Sallie Mae, which is an ex government owned corporation.
There’s a million places on the internet to rant about politics. Go find one.
I would happily pay a convenience fee to see ticketbastard win this award
this was a tough one!
When there is only one choice, there is only one choice: Ticketmaster.
At least Spirit Airlines provides some service to the consumer. Ticketmaster does nothing and takes a $10 cut.
Ticketmaster is absolutly the worst company in America. I wonder if the company could be broken up with anti-trust laws or somthing.
Ticketmaster as always, since I am forced to pay their extortion if I want to see a show/band or almost anything in a theater or stadium. It is the reason I don’t go to many.
Airlines you can often avoid.
i don’t go to concerts but i do fly. n Spirit is just terrible.
I bought tix to a show on ticketmaster. About 4 months out. They sent them to arrive the day of the show. It was an early afternoon show and I had to leave extra early to go to the box office to pick them up.
I called my credit card and challenged the fee. I explained that I saw the show, and would pay for the actual ticket, but ticketmaster didn’t provide the service they were charging me for. The fee above face value was credited to my account. This was before the print on demand option, by the way.
I bought tix to a show on ticketmaster. About 4 months out. They sent them to arrive the day of the show. It was an early afternoon show and I had to leave extra early to go to the box office to pick them up.
I called my credit card and challenged the fee. I explained that I saw the show, and would pay for the actual ticket, but ticketmaster didn’t provide the service they were charging me for. The fee above face value was credited to my account. This was before the print on demand option, by the way.
Two rodeo tickets recently cost me $20.00, plus another $18 in “convenience fees”. Tell me how that’s convenient! (Obviously, “convenient” for them, not me…)
It’s easy to fly without Spirit (I’ve never flown them but been on dozens of flights). TM has a near Monopoly and is single-handedly ruining live entertainment.
Wow, this is a tough one. I’ll have to go with Ticketbastard though, because of their monopoly bullshit, their fees that nearly double the price of a ticket and their all around asshattery. I can still avoid Spirit (although like TM they are setting bad precedent with things like charging for carry-ons, etc.).
Also I just like saying Ticketbastard.
Am I missing a poll here? How do I vote?
Look forward to this every year, but this year I don’t see any polls or links to polls. Are the first few rounds just voted in the comment section?
Do you have Ghostery? That seems to eat the polls here.
Yep I just discovered that! All this time I thought I was voting by posting! Can’t figure out WHICH of the 7 trackers on the page to unblock, so am using IE to vote.
Ticketmaster they are a abusive monopoly.
true story – i flew Spirit to Haiti after the quake and had one of the worst experiences…not that it was easy to get into the country at that time but we were redirected to Dominican Republic…on our return we were heading to the airport in PaP but were once again told that there were no flights and had to drive back cross-country back to Dominican Republic…when I picked up my bag, someone had written ‘evil’ on the ‘Spirit Airlines’ luggage tag…Ticketmaster is still worse.
You have no instructions that I can find in how to vote. Lame.
A poll in the middle of the page isn’t obvious enough?
Turn off adblock and ghostery.
I would rather take a bus than fly Spirit Airlines again.