I don’t understand how Ticketmaster continues to operate in the way they do. In this country we are anti-monopoly. The government will strike you down if you even think about owning too much market share. Yet, Ticketmaster continues to be ONLY viable option for tickets. How can this be?
Let me give you 3 recent examples of why Ticketmaster sucks:
- Ordered Neil Diamond tickets for a gift. Chose the option for Retail Location Pickup; that means I can go to a Ticketmaster location and have them print out my tickets. I go the nearest location, which is inside a Macy’s. The system is down/will not work. After waiting for 30 minutes plus, I finally ask the associate, can I take a look at the “terminal?” She says, “go for it.” It took me all of 5 minutes to fix the problem for her/them, which allowed them to print off my tickets. Here’s the kicker…Ticketmaster charged me a $1.00 convenience charge to pick up the tickets. Shouldn’t they have paid me?
- Ordered Peter Frampton tickets for myself. Chose the option for Retail Location Pickup. Between the time I ordered the tickets and went to pick them up, Discover (my credit card of choice and the one I used to buy the tickets) had issued me a new care and new number. I think you know where this is going. I present my receipt, my driver’s license, and my new Discover credit card to the associate. Despite ALL of this documentation they can not print my tickets, because I did not have my old Discover card with the my old number. After dealing with them for over 30 minutes in person and via phone, Ticketmaster agrees to send me my tickets via United States Postal Service.
- Ordered Ringo Starr tickets as a Father’s Day gift for my dad. The concert is in NY, I live in MN. I use the Retail Location Pickup locator on Ticketmaster’s site. It shows me that the nearest location is a Macy’s about 5 miles from my house. Taking my lessons learned from the above situations, I come prepared with my license, receipt, and credit card that I used to purchase the tickets. I present all 3 and of course we have a problem. Ticketmaster locations in Minnesota are unable to print tickets for events in New York. The associate’s recommendation was to pick them up in person in New York. Seriously. Think about that. Sir, can you please drive 1,800 miles to pickup your tickets? So I call Ticketmaster who agrees to ship them to me via UPS for a charge of $14.50. Now this gets better. On the day of the show, I receive an alert from Ticketmaster to my iPhone. The alert informs me the concert is canceled and I will receive a refund. I then receive a follow up email that says “Your credit card will automatically be credited the ticket price and convenience charges, and should post to your account within 7 to 10 business days. Please note, the $3.00 per order processing fee and any ticketFast or UPS delivery charges are non-refundable.” So the $14.50 that I shouldn’t have had to pay in the first time is now a sunk cost and Ticketmaster keeps their order processing fee.
If you are like me, then you’re saying to yourself, “Adam, if you think Ticketmaster sucks, and they screwed you over the first two times, why did you go to the well again?” Good question. Because there was NO other alternative.
In total, for all 3 transactions Ticketmaster charged me the following:
- Tickets: $392.00
- Building Facility Charges: $4.00
- Convenience Charges: $55.30
- Order Processing Charge: $11.34
- UPS Delivery: $14.50
- Retail Location Pickup: $1.00
- Tax: $2.78
That’s a grand total of $480.92, of which $67.64 (14.06%) are Ticketmaster fees. This is complete insanity. But, I ask you, what can I do? If I want to see Coldplay, Wicked, Elton John, etc. I have to go through Ticketmaster. Again, I ask how is this possible? Given the obvious monopoly play they have here, it’s not a surprise that they don’t really care about providing real customer care.
I’m open to ideas and suggestions on what to do in the future and how to shine more light on Ticketmaster’s short-comings. Thoughts?
Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
fuck ticketmaster. their new website sucks and so do they
I fell into the same trap, having no alternative. I purchased four tix and haven’t yet tried to pick them up, but I’m now scared about it. They made a big deal about being able to pick up the tix at a local convenient location, but once I purchased them I found that the locations are NOT convenient!! I actually have to go out of my way, make a special trip, probably during my lunchhour. What a rip.
Worst part is they initially charged me a convenience charge of three hundred and forty dollars per ticket. Yes, thats right, they messed up the decimal point and so the order came out to something like sixteen hundred for four tickets. To see a twenty five dollar dance performance.
I remember Eddie Vedder going against ticketmaster years ago. But eventually I guess he was just like, “oh fuggit; we’ll never win.” It was a noble fight though.
Ticketmaster really is the monopoly; government should investigate that.
you guys are right! I tried to buy 3 tickets to see Ringling bros circus. I decide not to go because the website sucks and the fee they added on the top of ticket price is outrage. They really suck!
To tell the truth, I can’t help but disagree in ways. They have a feature on the site that allows you to look up the locations of retail outlets, making it obvious by search results that one must pick up tickets within the same state in which the event is being held. As for the convenience fee, I found that this is a small price to pay in exchange for not having to go allll the way to the box office to avoid it. I’d end up spending more than the little convenience charge on gas to make the extra trip. The building fees are not TicketMaster’s fault, but rather the venue’s. It’s rather expensive to hold an event when you consider the cost of extra electricity for the event, operation of the food stands, extra water usage, all their permits, and the staff to run it all.
The $1.00 convenience charge you encountered was announced to you long before you hit the “Submit Your Order” button. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. And when you think about it, it too is another small price to pay when you consider the facts: A, you don’t have to worry about losing your tickets until you go to pick them up. B, you can pick them up at the box office on the day of the event, saving you an extra trip (and that was probably what the associate meant when he or she said to pick your tickets up in New York). C, except for standard postage, all other delivery methods are more than just a dollar. D, regular postage can be lost or damaged in the mail, and TicketMaster has no way of knowing whether or not the person is telling the truth when he or she calls to claim this, so they usually cannot refund the undelivered tickets. Sucks, but when you think about it it’s kind of true.
I think you get the idea. Even though that particular terminal was having issues, a buck isn’t much for the peace of mind and, yes, convenience that you get with the Retail Pickup delivery method in comparison with the other delivery methods.
As for the issue with the new Discover card, that should not have been a surprise either. They warn you multiple times that you will need to bring the card used to purchase the tickets before you ever hit the Submit Your Order button.
As for the delivery charges that TicketMaster did not refund to you, I can give you some credit there. They should not have kept the processing fee. It definitely sucks that TicketMaster was the party that offered you the UPS delivery option and then you had to pay for it and not get your money back, but that goes a couple ways. UPS is a separate company from TicketMaster. Your canceled event is not their concern; they delivered your package as promised and they want their payment, which you must agree is a fair trade. Some people might say that TicketMaster should still offer some compensation for it, and I can agree with that. At the same time, what a blow it would be to them! Every time a show is canceled, spending thousands returning shipping money to customers! Though I wish they would offer compensation for delivery fees, I can definitely see why they would be hesitant to do that. Also, in their defense, they did make known on the site the restrictions for picking tickets up in other states, and they told you personally that you could pick them up once you got to New York, which you apparently misunderstood. Their offer was an offer, and you accepted it. It kind of sucks, to say the least, but it’s very true.
Well, I didn’t type all that to put anyone down or make anyone mad. I just wanted you to see from a neutral point of view what TicketMaster may have been thinking when what happened to you guys happened.
Oh, except for what Kevin said. That’s definitely their fault. I hope they fixed the problem.
Ticketmaster sucks. I will not do business with them or any venue that uses them! Their fees are way out of line. I have and will continue to e-mail my elected reps to ask for an investigation into their unfair trade practices. I suggest you do the same!
Ticketmaster Ireland sucks too!!!!
i paid 2 tickets which is 211 euro in total and chose the option as ticketfast, bascially i can use ticketfast to print my ticket straightaway! but….after i choose, print my ticket option, it says, we have problems processing your ticket, please contact customer service, then i tried the CS number….nobody ever answer the call, and you cant stay online forever cos they cut you off after 3 mins,then u have to make a new call….i’ve been doing this for 2 weeks now…..sent them 10emails and never got a reply…….God help me………..deffo will never use ticketmaster ticketfast service again
I agree that it is hard as hell to get tickets from them and there should be another copmany we can go through! But the easiest way I have found is to order online and pay the 4 something to print them out. It is so much easier and faster
Yeahhhh. This is a great article and you seem to be pretty humorous and sarcastic in your approach-I love it! i recently purchased a ticket from ticketmaster as a gift for someone-”An Evening with Leonard Cohen.” Tickets are absurdly expensive and I ended up paying $150 for a halfway decent seat. Will I regret it? I hope not. I picked standard shipping for no extra cost…but I'm wondering how long it will take to get to me.
I live in the UK, we do not have the option of collecting tickets, although i ordered them for delivery, they have yet to arrive, i can not phone them because it's constantly engaged so i can't even connect to a waiting list, i can't email them. It is 6 days before the gig, and i'm doubting that i'll ever see the tickets. (Also, i ordered 2 sets of tickets after that, and had a confirmation text for the tickets in question, and one for one of the other gigs, but recieved the latter two, both of which came about 1-2 weeks after ordering, work that one out :S)
This happened to me as well. Ticketmaster's Tickfast option is very deceptive. I could not print out the tickets either. I LOST 187.50. They refused to refund or offfer me any resolution.
This happened to me as well. Ticketmaster's Tickfast option is very deceptive. I could not print out the tickets either. I LOST 187.50. They refused to refund or offfer me any resolution.