Ticketek ‘glitch’ appears to re-sell fan’s $659 ticket for Taylor Swift concert — “They said, ‘someone else has it, we don’t know who, we can’t check or track who has your ticket’”::A Taylor Swift fan believed her VIP ticket was ‘stolen’ from her account by Ticketek after an apparent system ‘glitch’.
This is one of the most perfect examples of a bank charge back situation I have ever seen.
No need, click bait headline.
“[They said] ‘someone else has it, we don’t know who, we can’t check or track who has your ticket’,” the 21-year-old said. “All they could do was issue me a refund, I have essentially had my ticket stolen from me.”
After failing to get the situation sorted and her ticket reinstated by Ticketek’s customer service, Rebecca went online to try to get answers on Sunday. This is about when the company was finally able to ensure she still had a ticket, despite apparently being told otherwise. “We have now reached out to Rebecca to confirm,” the spokesperson said.
In a statement to Yahoo on Monday, Ticketek said the situation had been rectified and other customers needn’t worry about any such glitches in their online marketplace.
You get your money back, sure, but the company has also profited off the theft of the ticket, so I think a reasonable jury/judge would find you’re owed some money for that profit and maybe some more so they think twice about doing it again. You’d probably be able to take them to small claims court and get an easy settlement for the equivalent of upgraded seats on the secondary market.
Also, if they had booked flights, hotels, and made other commitments to travel to the concert that money might not be easy to get back.
You would think right? But look at airlines, they can overbook a flight, and tough luck. Rental car places can say they don’t have the car you reserved… the law is not there to protect you, it is there to protect business.
pro tip: your insurance probably has a discount deal w/ a major rental company - USAA & Enterprise, for example. Partnerships like this keep the fuckers honest to retain the income stream.
Just a guess, but I bet what they do is post the same tickets for different prices and then give it to the highest price that sells, and “oops our bad, there was some kind of a glitch” + refund to all the lower price ones.
Then they can guarantee the lower but still profitable sale while still having a chance at the ridiculous price for someone who really really wants it and is willing to pay a crazy amount.
I bought tickets like 4 months in advance for an event. Like a week before the event, I get an email that they don’t have my seats, and offered tickets a section over. I was actually relieved because prices had dropped, so I just said no thanks, I’ll take a refund, and bought better, cheaper seats.
$659? Is it a week long concert with hotel and food included?
Limited view tickets were $1500 a piece when TS came to Levi stadium. Bonkers
You can get a week long hotel stay and food included for $659?
That’s not so unreasonable. An extended stay hotel near me is $539/week, and that was just the first result. That leaves $120 for food, or $17/day. While it won’t be living the high life, it can be done.
As someone who just tried to get a hotel near a concert, it won’t work like that. The hotels know there is a show in town and price accordingly. When I tried, rooms that were typically $75-$150 per night were at $400-$1000 per night. I’m talking Hilton and Marriot all the way to econolodge and motel 6, all raised their prices by 5-10x. Anything I found that was decent was an advertisement for a general price. Then you try to reserve and they say “Oh you wanted it for THOSE nights? The price is $700 a night for those nights.” Even though I clicked on $125 a night search results. This was 8 months before my stay, within a week of the concert being announced.
Ended up renting an RV for 4 days and parking it at a cheap rv place. Still cost over a grand after everything.
The rates you mention are… ridiculously foreign to me. I cannot even conceive only dropping half a grand and having somewhere to sleep for a whole week. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but not near me for damn sure.
Not sure where you live, but any big city is likely to have (as a whole) more than enough hotel capacity that a single big event won’t cause that much demand. You just won’t be able to find a room nearby. Add a 20 minute (or 60, depending) Lyft to the suburbs and they’re barely aware that the event is happening.
Also, to get that price you need to look at extended stay hotels. These blur the lines between a hotel and a short-term rental apartment. They do not offer a stay for a single night. They are often sold by the week, or at least with a 1-week minimum
Depends where, obviously.
Those are only the “VIP” tickets. One Google search and it turns out that normal tickets range from 49-499 depending on where you’re stood/seated. This $659 is meant for the best seats for the richest people.
Well, if they paid me this money I’d be willing to tolerate the concert.
But how could anyone justify spending this amount on one f*king concert (of Taylor Swift on top of it) is beyond me.
People are fucking insane for spending that sort of money for an opportunity to spend a couple of hours in extreme crowd just to barely see a billionaire singer and barely hear the songs. Its even worse since they are clearly getting fucked by corporations at the same time
I mean… I wouldn’t do it. But I have spend insane money on other stuff I feel like it’s a not that crazy amount. And to each it’s own…
The fees they charge as part of it… that’s another thing that I agree they are bastards.
It’s me, I have it, I’m the problem
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Ticket prices are obscene and I hope Swift isn’t gouging her fans. The last concert I went to pre pandemic, cost me $70 a piece, now those same tickets are easily triple that price. Who can afford this anymore?
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She totally is, ticketing agencies’ take is the service and delivery fee, base price is still driven by the artist/their management.
I doubt it’s her. I mean, it could be. But more likely it’s going to TM rather than her.
Doubtful. TicketMaster is there to take the bad PR but was designed to get as many fees and funnel part of those fees to the artist. Yes TM has deals with Live Nation that basically force big artists to use them because they have the big stadiums, but Taylor Swift is a massive artist she has tons of lawyers and can negotiate fees.
As much as I love Taylor Swift, I have no doubt that she is massively benefiting from the high ticket prices.
True
I can’t speak for the arrangement between the artist and the venue, but generally the agency just makes money from the fees.
I went to go see Pantera and Lamb of God on Saturday and all of the 4 sites I checked had at least a $30 fee per ticket, with zero explanation of what that fee was for. The tickets were priced from $60 on up and then once you select a ticket they slap on the $30 fee! Parking was also $45, and beer was $20.
I just had a ticketmaster subsidiary charge me taxes on two tickets in a state where we have zero sales tax.
I saw Megadeth front row for like $30 in the early 2000s 😭 their goodbye tour was like $400 a seat
How do you define gouging? Last I checked, even with these high ticket prices, most of her shows are sold out. How does that differ from basic supply and demand?
Interesting we use Taylor swift as a discussion point on supply/demand for first year economics.
Effectively, there is a shortage of tickets vs demand so those at the higher end of the demand line can buy for ridiculous prices, everyone else misses out.
So they tried a lottery system - you get a ticket, if your number comes up you buy at a lower price as less people can now buy. Doesn’t work because scalpers push in as well, then sell to those with a higher WTP, pocket the difference, price doesnt change and venue/her miss out.
So she tried a point system- buy her cd, follow on insta, join fan club, get points, higher points get early access to lower priced tickets, actual fans get tickets and not worth effort for scalpers. But she got hauled over the coals for turning it into a popularity contest and had to stop it.
And now here we are.
They’re not cheap if you get them first hand but they’re not insane considering who we’re talking about. Bands like The Eagles, Rolling Stones,etc were commanding $150+ tickets two decades ago. But good luck getting a non-resale ticket, between bots and the companies themselves buying the tickets solely to mark up for resale it’s nearly impossible to get a ticket at face value.
Man, I remember paying $30 in the late 90s for a front row seat at a Megadeth concert in a smaller venue. Ozzy Osbourne and Rob zombie with slipknot cost me like $40
I remember seeing nosebleed Metallica seats for like $200. Instead got a VIP festival weekend ticket for $200 with Metallica doing 2 shows that covid cancelled! 🤣
lol I did some volunteer work on a festival once and carried their stuff.
When someone rich and powerful wants to go to a concert, there’s always a way…
Release now! Patch never
Oooo Taylor scissor me timbers! If I ever pay over 200 for a concert ticket boys…go ahead and let the hammer drop.
Bruh $200 for a show is still an absolute fleecing.
$659 for a one night gig…
You can get a week pass to a festival for cheaper…
A full and his money are easily parted
full
The irony in that typo is palpable. Some real KenM energy
I guarantee that there is entertainment that you spend money on that other people find foolish.
Not that much money though.
Sure, but chances are, relative to much of the world, you are actually pretty wealthy and most people would scoff at you spending even 1/10th of that on a single event. Remember, there is much of the world where the median yearly income is under 1k a year.
touche
I think the “full” here is the one who can’t fathom that others value things differently from themself.
Also, her money*. It’s in the summary
The average ticket price for her tour 2023 was 1088$
Whoever pays prices like this is completely lost
Gross
why is this girl suddenly everywhere? I hadn’t heard of her for the last 5 years, and since this week I’ve seen her daily.
Taylor Swift?
yeah, I know she’s a singer but I don’t like pop and I hadn’t read so much of her til now. I guess that people that like pop music might have heard of her more
I don’t get why they are downvoting you. It’s absolutely true that last month she’s been more on the news than at any other given time the last 5 years.
Basically the manager of Tyler Swift spread around a conspiracy theory so now MAGA is talking about her all the time which makes anti-maga talk about her all the time which increases her CD sales.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg!
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