Concerts and Refunds

Started by 46&2, April 29, 2007, 03:50:04 PM

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46&2

April 29, 2007, 03:50:04 PM
Let me pose this question you all of you out there:


Have you ever bought something, decided you wanted a refund, but not had to return the item that you are getting refunded on?



Seems like a retarded question right?


Well let me tell you a little story. Im sure any of you who go to sports events or concerts have used Ticketmaster before. I wanted to go see Tool this monday in Reno. I wasnt able to get tickets though because they sold out lightning fast. By a random chance I ran into someone who happened to have two extra tickets. Seeing the tickets and wanting desperatly to go, I bought them. They were obviously real tickets, not copied or internet printouts and I bought them for the face value, IE he didnt "scalp" me for the tickets by asking an outrageous ammount.

It never occured to me that they might not be valid for another reason though. The show was origionaly about two months ago, but the drummer hurt himself and the show was postponed until the 30th. Never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed what I found out today.

If you purchase tickets from ticketmaster, and decide to get a refund for the tickets for whatever reason, Ticketmaster does not make you send the tickets back to get a refund. They simply "erase" the existance of those tickets from their database and create new ones to sell to whomever gets them. So the physical ticket still exists, still looks like a real ticket, and esentialy is valid in every way except that TM has destroyed its virtual existance.

Furthermore, if you happen to be in my position where I did not purchase them FROM ticketmaster, there is no way to verify if the tickets are valid. Unless you provide the origional purchaser's credit card and information, they can't disclose ANY information about the tickets, even something as simple as if it was refunded or not.

So basicaly, if this guy was a cruel as*hole, he could have gotten a refund, and then pretended to be cool and sold me tickets that he had refunded. There is NO way for me to find out. I called TM today and the lady said "Sure, I can look up the tickets for you, but I cant tell you if they are valid or have been refunded"

I am just really hoping this guy wasnt some jerk-off because I really want to go to this show and I dropped $160 on the two tickets. I just cant believe a company can run their business like that, not making people send back the actual tickets. For anyone that knows much about concerts these days ticket scalping is a huge problem. This seems like it only PROMOTES cheating people.

Potentially, I could buy 10 tickets to a concert, get a refund, then go to the concert anyway and sell the once valid tickets to people, and they would have no idea!

What the hell is going on??? Am I the only one that sees how rediculous this is?? If I drive two hours to Reno monday night only to find out I got scammed I honestly might go insane. I can only pray he was a good person and not screwing me over, but I wont really know until monday night.
85 4Runner Build  /  Cool Foreign Toyotas  /  Toyota: We Want Diesel FB Page    Rockcrawlintoy – i guess moms will put the pups up on the beach when they go fisting

jimbo74

#1
April 29, 2007, 03:55:10 PM
nope the tickets have a barcode on them, they scan them to let you in, their scanner will tell them immediately if the tickets are valid or not
:usa:

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

46&2

#2
April 29, 2007, 04:01:04 PM
Well yes I know that but I am saying until I actualy get there, ticketmaster cant tell me if the tickets are valid or not. I will definitely find out when I get there, its just irritating they cant give you any information over the phone unless you yourself bought them. I would think if you bought the tickets, you would know if you had gotten a refund. I just dont like the concept of not returning items that you have gotten refunded. Seems like a scammers dream come true.
85 4Runner Build  /  Cool Foreign Toyotas  /  Toyota: We Want Diesel FB Page    Rockcrawlintoy – i guess moms will put the pups up on the beach when they go fisting

TRHS1980

#3
April 29, 2007, 04:12:24 PM
That's pretty messed up man. Certainly doesn't seem like sound business. Wish there was something more I could say, hope everything works out for you!
2007 Tacoma 4x4 6-speed on 35's

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."

jimbo74

#4
April 29, 2007, 04:20:43 PM
why did you buy tickets from someone you ran into? i would never do that, for exactly this reason.....


now if its someone you work with or something, ask him about it.... it doesnt sound liek this is the case though.....
:usa:

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

BLACKDOG

#5
April 29, 2007, 11:43:23 PM Last Edit: April 29, 2007, 11:54:16 PM by BLACKDOG
I had a similar experience from the other side, and the way they work it really helped me out.  I bought tickets online for a show that later got postponed by about 5 months.  A week before the show, I could not find the tickets :dunno:  Still haven't seen them (a year and a half later)   I figured I was screwed, but I really couldn't be upset with anyone but myself.  Wound up calling ticketmaster anyway, just to see if anything could be done.  They gladly said "no problem, we'll just cancel those old tickets and mail you out new ones"  :clap:  I got to go to my show :woohoo:

That policy is to help legitimate, honest ticketmaster customers, and if it is abused, to cover ticketmaster's butt.  If that policy didn't exist, I wouldn't have been able to go to my concert :dunno: or it would have been a lot harder to get it taken care of.


Besides, ticketmaster doesn't care about people purchasing tickets through backdoor sources.  They don't get the $10 service charge per ticket that way.  That is where their money is, not the ticket price. 


:usa: Its better to die on your feet than live on your knees :usa:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. "

"I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves."
              -Ronald Reagan

Don't take life too seriously, it isn't permanent

46&2

#6
April 30, 2007, 01:01:55 PM
Quote from: jimbo74 on April 29, 2007, 04:20:43 PM
why did you buy tickets from someone you ran into? i would never do that, for exactly this reason.....


now if its someone you work with or something, ask him about it.... it doesnt sound liek this is the case though.....

No what happened was my friend is a manager of a local gas station, she used to chat with this guy (regular customer) and they happened to discover they were both Tool fans. She told him she wasnt able to get tickets and he said he had two extras from friends that crapped out and sold them to her for face value. So it seems legitimate. i would never buy tickets from a scalper at a concert or off of ebay or something for other reasons. I just never thought that ticketmaster refunds worked that way until recently.

Mainly it pissed me off that ticketmaster couldnt even tell me if the tickets were valid or not because i wasnt the origional purchaser. Its not like i was asking for personal information, just a simple  YES or NO answer.

I can see where that policy would help in your situation blackdog, but IMO if you get a refund you should be required to send the tickets back. you never got a refund, just lost the tickets. thats a totaly different situation. anyway im trying to go into this with a possitive attitude and just hope that the guy was telling the truth. If he wasnt i know where hes a regular customer so it wouldnt be hard to track his ass down. Like i said, i dont buy scalped tickets period but at the time this seemed like one of those

"Wow what a lucky coincidence" type of moments. My excitement got the better of me.
85 4Runner Build  /  Cool Foreign Toyotas  /  Toyota: We Want Diesel FB Page    Rockcrawlintoy – i guess moms will put the pups up on the beach when they go fisting

BLACKDOG

#7
April 30, 2007, 05:03:42 PM
Quote from: fortysixandtwo on April 30, 2007, 01:01:55 PM
No what happened was my friend is a manager of a local gas station, she used to chat with this guy (regular customer) and they happened to discover they were both Tool fans. She told him she wasnt able to get tickets and he said he had two extras from friends that crapped out and sold them to her for face value. So it seems legitimate. i would never buy tickets from a scalper at a concert or off of ebay or something for other reasons. I just never thought that ticketmaster refunds worked that way until recently.

Mainly it pissed me off that ticketmaster couldnt even tell me if the tickets were valid or not because i wasnt the origional purchaser. Its not like i was asking for personal information, just a simple  YES or NO answer.

I can see where that policy would help in your situation blackdog, but IMO if you get a refund you should be required to send the tickets back. you never got a refund, just lost the tickets. thats a totaly different situation. anyway im trying to go into this with a possitive attitude and just hope that the guy was telling the truth. If he wasnt i know where hes a regular customer so it wouldnt be hard to track his ass down. Like i said, i dont buy scalped tickets period but at the time this seemed like one of those

"Wow what a lucky coincidence" type of moments. My excitement got the better of me.
It'd certainly make sense to have people send them back, but then you'd get the people bitching about having to mail them in, ticketmaster has to deal with tossing the tickets, etc.  Its probably cheaper from a business perspective to simply print new ones, and invalidate the old. 

:thumbs:  goodluck on the tickets, its easy to say that you'd never buy tickets second hand, but when there is an opportunity, sometimes you jump without thinking.  I've done it, and got lucky and didn't get burned.  I hope it works out for ya! :thumbs:
:usa: Its better to die on your feet than live on your knees :usa:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. "

"I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves."
              -Ronald Reagan

Don't take life too seriously, it isn't permanent

46&2

#8
May 01, 2007, 07:18:46 PM
Update: they were valid! Spent the two hour drive worrying that they would be invalid but they werent! Doesnt mean i dont still dissagree with their policies though. All the worrying has verified that I wont buy any tickets ever again except from ticketb*stard...kick ass show though. Well worth all the frustration, anger and the nervous two hour drive..... :)
85 4Runner Build  /  Cool Foreign Toyotas  /  Toyota: We Want Diesel FB Page    Rockcrawlintoy – i guess moms will put the pups up on the beach when they go fisting

jimbo74

#9
May 01, 2007, 07:24:06 PM
thats awesome you didnt get screwed :) :thumbs:
:usa:

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

~ John F. Kennedy ~

BLACKDOG

#10
May 01, 2007, 11:03:32 PM
:thumbs:  sweet!  glad to hear it!
:usa: Its better to die on your feet than live on your knees :usa:

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. "

"I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves."
              -Ronald Reagan

Don't take life too seriously, it isn't permanent
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