Back on Dec. 2, Consumerist reader Kathleen logged into Groupon.com and bought a deal on a pair of tickets to see a college basketball game at her Alma Mater on Dec. 22. What she didn’t know at the time is that using the deal would be an impossibility because it expired on Dec. 9.

Kathleen found this out when she went to print out the Groupon and found she could no longer access it, as the expiration date had come and gone. Concerned that she wouldn’t be able to prove to the folks at the game that she had paid for this deal, she wrote Groupon customer service on Dec. 10 and received the following response:

Hi Kathleen,

Thanks for your email and I apologize for any trouble. I’m sending this issue along to a customer support representative on our Resolutions team.

Thank you for your patience — they will be in touch as soon as possible.

While that response would seem to provide some hope that the issue was being resolved, it’s been a week with no further updates from Groupon. Meanwhile, the game is coming in three days.

It’s one thing for Groupon to make an error regarding an expiration date, but it shouldn’t require this long for the company to resolve the error.

UPDATE: After a week of nothing from Groupon, Kathleen suddenly received two apologetic e-mails from the company within an hour of the story hitting Consumerist.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, as a rep for Groupon says they have been spending the last few days trying to get Kathleen’s issue resolved.

Regardless, she’s now received her voucher and can attend this weekend’s game.

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