I bought very expensive tickets (over $2,000 for three “VIP” tickets – all that were available when I tried to get regular ones EXACTLY at the time they were supposedly made available) to the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco, which occurred just this past weekend. I was informed – by email – that the tickets would be mailed within two weeks of the event. That was exactly the time that I was moving from California to Utah. Consequently, I tried REPEATEDLY to reach Ticketmaster to make sure I would get the tickets (wristbands in this case) in time to make arrangements for attending the event.
ALL I got was repeated template email responses, no matter how much I pleaded to speak to a representative. Ticketmaster has NO phone number that is clearly available on their website or by search on the web.
I got the tickets/wristbands the DAY Outside Lands began; clearly too late to make hotel and plane reservations and clearly too late to attend. I could NOT do the print-your-own tickets because it was not an option. Perhaps this was due to the fact I got so-called VIP tickets. If this is the way they treat “VIPs,” I’ll pass.
When I called American Express and started a dispute – after being a customer for 36 YEARS – I eventually got a template letter from them saying, “Ticketmaster said the tickets will be mailed two weeks before the event.” Clearly, they too ignored what I’d said about my specific situation.
This is FRAUD and this is what Ticketmaster has done to customers for decades. Aside from their exorbitant-extortion-added-on fees for events, they make any problem with anything the customer’s problem and never theirs.
What SHOCKED me was how they have muscled American Express into capitulating to their fraud. I spoke to two different American Express representatives, both of whom were very respectful, and both of whom said and I quote, “We are bound by paper and there’s not much we can do. You will have to call Ticketmaster. And they then gave me a phone number?”
THEY have a phone number for Ticketmaster but I, the customer, can’t get one!?
I am now trying their 800 number but I expect little success. The ONLY way to get a company like Ticketmaster to pay attention, sadly, is to create public awareness and get others to step up with their Ticketmaster horror stories. I hope you will join this effort to get Ticketmaster to actually provide customer service and “service” their customers.
NOTE: I just went through their voice menu system for several minutes – it’s 9:00 a.m. – and eventually after punching in all their requests was informed they were closed.
