Ticketmaster Service Fees

Back in October, I bought two tickets to see Regina Spektor at the Tabernacle here in Atlanta. My wife is a bigger fan than I am, but we both like her music, and I thought it would be a fun pre-Christmas night out, as the show was scheduled for early December. Sadly, just a few days before the event, I got an email from Ticketmaster saying that the concert was canceled and rescheduled for a few weeks later. Although this meant we had to call our babysitter and move some things around, we figured it was no big deal, and adjusted for the new date.

Wouldn't you know it, on the DAY OF the resceduled concert, I got a pre-recorded voicemail from Ticketmaster (around 3pm, just hours before the show) saying the event was once again canceled and would be made up at a later date. This was also frustrating, as we once again had to cancel on a babysitter. Even worse, we couldn't get in touch with her at work, so we actually had to send her away when she got to the house. (We offered to pay her for the time, but she declined.)

I never got another email or voicemail from Ticketmaster about the rescheduled show. Instead, when I received their monthly newsletter in early January, I saw that they had Regina Spektor listed in their upcoming concerts. Her new date was in late February, about three full months after she was originally scheduled. Considering that we already had birthday plans just a few days from that date and didn't want to pay for a sitter twice in one week--or even worse, get canceled on again--I decided to return the tickets.

I should mention that during this whole process of constant reschedules, both the voicemail left by Ticketmaster and the email they sent for the first cancellation mentioned that tickets would be refunded at the purchaser's request. This is what's known as a "half-truth."

When I used Ticketmaster's online help system to request a refund on the tickets, explaining the situation in detail, I was informed that they would refund the amount...minus service fees. Out of the $85 I paid, I got about $74 back. The customer service representative stated that those fees were non-refundable. What bullshit.

I paid for a concert in December, not a concert in February. Once they moved the date, I should've been able to get all of my money back. I'm sorry that they incurred fees for the transaction, but covering those fees is the price of good customer service. They should've tried to get reimbursed by the flaky artist that canceled, not by me. And since I used the online system to buy the tickets, and used the "print now" option to get them, I can't even see what costs could've been involved with this transaction. The only thing they could've lost money on is the cost of the credit card service they use. But even my small-fry local comic shop covers that expense on their own. They don't bill me extra for their Visa machine.

Ticketmaster's service fees have always been a bit outrageous. That's common knowledge. But keeping a share of my ticket price after they caused as much inconvenience as they did is a crock of crap. The end result is that they held onto about $85 of my money through the holiday season when it could've been used for gifts, caused us and our babysitter continued headaches, and then gave only part of our money back when asked. My wife and I don't get a thing out of the deal, but Ticketmaster gets paid for absolutely nothing.

Thanks a lot, assholes. Wonderful policies you have going there. Eleven dollars isn't really enough money to break our budget, but I'm way more pissed at the principle of the matter than the financial loss. In the end, you got my money and I got nothing but annoyance.

And for that, you suck.