Joe ordered tickets to a John Mayer concert through Ticketmaster but was turned away at will call. His order didn’t go through because someone at the company input his credit card number incorrectly. He wants to run through the halls of his high school and scream at the top of his lungs:

Fast forward to a few days later, when I received an email from Live Nation stating: “Thanks for coming to see John Mayer at Riverbend Music Center. How was it?” I called and spoke with a support representative to find out what was going on. I quickly was passed up the food chain when they stated that they found my order, and provided me with my order number, but that my credit card number didn’t match what was on their file. I spoke with the first supervisor, Dee, who walked through the process with me until we found that the credit card number listed in the system was only 15 digits long! They had mis-typed my credit card number, and attempted to process it twice. At this point, she put me on hold, then came back and offered me a $25 compensation. When I informed her that this wouldn’t even cover the cost of the babysitter, she offered to transfer me to another support supervisor.

I spoke with another rep, who immediately transferred me to his supervisor. I spoke with Mandy, who titled herself as a Customer Service Supervisor, and she politely listened to my plea for help before informing me I would be recieving nothing for my trouble. I asked her to clarify and she let me know, quite sternly, that I hadn’t been charged for the tickets, so there was no reason for compensation. I reminded her that the issue at hand was due to a mistake by the Ticketmaster representative who had taken my order, and she informed me that the rep likely went through the proper procedure of informing me that the card had been declined. I informed her that I had no knowledge that my order was not being processed properly, and she replied by telling me that I should have called to check on the order when I didn’t receive a confirmation email within a few days.

When I asked her to reiterate, reminding her of my time and frustration invested in the matter, she let me know that there would be no compensation and asked if there were anything else she could assist me with. When I asked if there were a supervisor or an email address where I could voice my concerns about the quality of support I had recieved, she informed me that she was the supervisor, and that she had heard my concerns and they would be noted. When asked again about an email address, she walked me through how to send an email to their general support mailbox.

After over an hour on the phone with multiple supervisors, and having recieved an offer of compensation and multiple people who recognized that this was Ticketmaster’s fault, I was frustrated to have been put in touch with someone who had no interest in my concerns.

If you buy concert tickets online or over the phone, what steps do you take to ensure your order is valid?

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