Ticketmaster...Fraud....Screwup....or what?

[Bill in SD, CA]

On 06.16.03 tickets for The Eagles Farewell Concert went on sale in San Diego at 10 A.M.

30 seconds after the sale time I got in and purchased 4 PRIMO tickets on my Amex card for $700 and received a confirmation # from Ticketmaster for my purchase.

Today, after receiving tickets for a concert I bought from Ticketmaster 2 weeks later for another artist I realized that my Eagle tickets had not arrived.

I went to check on the order through my confirmation # and found that the order had been "canceled."

No email from TM on this by the way.

TM says Amex declined the sale. Have a 24K limit on the card and a 2K balance. Why did I get the tickets to the other concert if there was a problem with the card?

TM says tough doo-doo. Amex say they know nothing about it. Amex offered to TM to pay an additional premium for the tixs but TM says tough.

Want lawn seats 45 miles from the stage? No thanks!!!

Do you think:

1: Screw up? If so why the confirmation #?

2. A hack of the site killing orders? If so, how would the hacker be able to divert the tixs to another person?

3. Inside job? I'm leaning to this as those tickets were some of the best available.

4. How do I find the name of the CEO of TM so I can bother this dude?

Thanks,

Bill

[Sweeper]

Do you have a limit - a fraud limit - to where your CC company could have denied the purchase due to a very "PRICEY" buy. A lot of cards now have the fraud prevention to avoid getting your card stolen and having them run up the tab. If they deem that the purchase looked "SUSPICIOUS" then they could have denied it.

[Bill in SD, CA]

Charge appeared on the online statement and hence has disappeared.

[NeoStarO1]

Originally posted by Bill in SD, CA
Charge appeared on the online statement and hence has disappeared.

Keep an eye on that and make sure it doesn't appear again. Sounds suspusios to me. Hopefully they took your complaint and reversed the charges however I would think they would have a line on your statement or online statement stating that charges we reversed rather than erased.

[Knothead]

2. A hack of the site killing orders? If so, how would the hacker be able to divert the tixs to another person?

I would rule that out, since Amex appears to have been on the ball, even offered to make it right for you.

3. Inside job? I'm leaning to this as those tickets were some of the best available.

I think so. Most likely somebody within the Ticketmaster organization.

[Siliconjunkie]

Ticketmaster here is open about the fact that they will sell prime tickets to resellers/scalpers before regular customers. That is alot of the reason I refuse to goto concerts. Too many times waiting in line for hours only to get general adminssion seats.

My theory is that they found someone willing to pay more. I would get AMEX to back you up and see what you can do. They scammed you plain and simple.

[M_Six]

TicketMaster are a bunch of thieves that have ruined concert going. We used to buy concert tickets for 10 events all at once at the beginning of the summer for Great Woods in Mass. Then ThiefMaster got involved and suddenly you had to wait in line to buy tickets one concert at a time. I waited three hours for Jimmy Buffet once and was at the counter 10 minutes after the tix went on sale. All they had left from 4 shows was Thursday night lawn seats. There's no way they could have sold all those tix so fast. Sure enough, a week before the show you hear ads on the radio for primo seats at $85 to $150 each. The bastards had sold all the good seats to resellers in Rhode Island.

Like SJ said, TicketMaster scammed you, plain and simple. It's about time for a class-action suit against them. Or start boycotting concerts.

EDIT: ZOIKS! $700 for 4 tickets?!?!!? I had to go back and read that to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Good to be you, eh? For that kind of dough, you should get backstage passes and invites to the after concert party. No offense, but I wouldn't pay $175 to see God.

[Bill in SD, CA]

Originally posted by M_Six

EDIT: ZOIKS! $700 for 4 tickets?!?!!? I had to go back and read that to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Good to be you, eh? For that kind of dough, you should get backstage passes and invites to the after concert party. No offense, but I wouldn't pay $175 to see God.

I'm sorry, I lied. It was $696.90 not $700.00. TM's cut was $61.80.

Both of my sons are budding musicians. One on piano and the other guitar. I really wanted to have great seats so that they could see the "music" part of the show close up.

Bill

[Target]

To be honest Bill, I'm with those who hold the opinion that TM actually sold you the seats (hence the confirmation number) and then renigged on the deal. I'm sure that they have all sorts of disclaimers and what-not to back up this "mistake, but if you have the gumption and the means, I'd make it a legal issue with them.

I also agree that TM has done nothing good for concert going. Sure they created a single point of sale for some events, but they also brought along all the bad things that this sort of thing entails....IE: higher customer prices, unfair availability, lower revenues for the artists who perform the event, etc..

My thoughts on TM are not fit to print in this forum, so will cut it short. Sorry to hear about your circumstances though. That blows goats!!!

If there are any ambitious lawyers that read this forum and would like to take on TM, please feel free initiate a class-action suit on behalf of ticket buyers everywhere.