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Post by londonmzfitz on Jun 30, 2023 13:11:02 GMT
I have a ticket problem (gig, not theatre) - anyone had experience using STAR?
Purchased tickets from a retailer who is a member of the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR) in a pre-sale back in Feb 2023, got 2nd blooming row, well chuffed, paid my £££ and got the email confirmation through. Two days later email from the retailer saying they'd had an admin error and I'm now 6th row, 2nd row has gone to people who'd paid more £ (tiered ticket thing, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Plebs). I've missed the pre-sale, general sale is now on and rows 80+ are up for sale ...
I've contacted the retailer by email in February and March, and was told "tough". On the advice of Citizens Advice Bureau (they quoted breach of contract, not the tickets I'd purchased in good faith etc, by retailers admission it's their admin error, seats haven't been shifted around) I wrote polite letter in April 2023 to the retailer with copies of relevant information, sent recorded delivery - no response. Phoned the retailer and was told over the phone "tough" (and they don't open letters, he'd worked there 18 months and they don't "do" letters).
I contacted STAR in end of April 2023, and May 2023. They confirmed they've received my emails and messages on 9 May 2023 and would respond within 14 days. I emailed again on 6 June 2023, no answer. Now, I know 6th row isn't row 80+ and I should be happy, I guess, but I'm peed off I wasn't given the option of spending the extra £ to keep my original tickets, and the attitude I've had off the retailer over - *by their own admission* - their admin error. And cherry on the cake from STAR by not responding to me since 9 May 2023.
Any advice? Thoughts? Gig is in December 2023, I'd already booked the non-refundable hotel (Birmingham) the evening before the pre-sale tickets went on sale, going with a friend who was utterly delighted at the prospect of 2nd row.
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Post by Dave B on Jun 30, 2023 13:34:08 GMT
I went through STAR once for an issue with Today Tix. Front row seats turned out to not be front row, Today Tix had a wrong seat map up and what really frustrated me was they knowingly kept it up for another six weeks fo the shows run after acknowledging to me that it was wrong! TodayTix just stopped responding, didn't offer any resolution. I made a complaint, got nowhere and then took a dispute resolution with STAR. Within a day of me doing that, Today Ticket contacted me and offered a full refund to close the case.
I'd think 9th May to date is too long for STAR not to respond and I'd put a polite complaint in to info@star.org.uk requesting they review the handling of the issue.
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Post by londonmzfitz on Jun 30, 2023 14:06:25 GMT
Gawd, do you know, with all the festering and sulking I've done on this ... that is such a reasonable and well balanced solution ... I'm on edge over this and am properly taking it personally; the bloke on the phone at the retailer was so condescending, and STAR blanking my original letter and now not answering my email from earlier this month ....
Deep breath. Thanks DaveB. Have emailed the info@, and copied in the other STAR email. Thanks!!
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Post by TallPaul on Jun 30, 2023 16:26:07 GMT
Please keep us 'in the loop'. There are other avenues available down the line.
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Post by andys on Jun 30, 2023 19:56:04 GMT
The attitude of the ticket retailer really is shocking (and I've worked in ticketing for several decades now). Would be willing to state which company this is?
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Post by mkb on Jun 30, 2023 20:18:43 GMT
Gawd, do you know, with all the festering and sulking I've done on this ... that is such a reasonable and well balanced solution ... I'm on edge over this and am properly taking it personally; the bloke on the phone at the retailer was so condescending, and STAR blanking my original letter and now not answering my email from earlier this month .... You're not alone. I find I take it really badly when an organisation I'm spending my own money with treats me badly. It doesn't actually matter how trivial the issue is, it's just the fact of it. It really screws me up mentally with the injustice of how they get away with it. An example of something incredibly minor: I used a free members' ticket for a film at the BFI. (They're not actually free: you get two such tickets for your £35 annual membership.) They cancelled the show due to Covid and refused to reinstate the free ticket for when they reopened. It was only worth a tenner for goodness sake, but the attitude of their staff in emails upset me really badly. At the National Theatre, I spotted a manager, and asked her why it wasn't possible to buy a tea or coffee in the interval of an evening show, and I regretted asking. Her responses were so Kafka-esque and evasive, she put me in a foul mood for the second half that I couldn't shake off. I've had loads of far more serious things that drive me mad too. I'm currently waiting on a court date for the £500 Lufthansa owe my husband for example. (They paid me but won't pay him for the exact same delay.) I tried CBT a couple of years ago that was slightly helpful in trying to deal with the stress of all these situations, but it seems the best solution is to simply be the sort of person who doesn't worry about them and let's them go. Unfortunately, that ain't me. I'm very much a Victor Meldrew type who will not ignore bad behaviour. |
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Post by lynette on Jun 30, 2023 23:08:05 GMT
Gawd, do you know, with all the festering and sulking I've done on this ... that is such a reasonable and well balanced solution ... I'm on edge over this and am properly taking it personally; the bloke on the phone at the retailer was so condescending, and STAR blanking my original letter and now not answering my email from earlier this month .... You're not alone. I find I take it really badly when an organisation I'm spending my own money with treats me badly. It doesn't actually matter how trivial the issue is, it's just the fact of it. It really screws me up mentally with the injustice of how they get away with it. An example of something incredibly minor: I used a free members' ticket for a film at the BFI. (They're not actually free: you get two such tickets for your £35 annual membership.) They cancelled the show due to Covid and refused to reinstate the free ticket for when they reopened. It was only worth a tenner for goodness sake, but the attitude of their staff in emails upset me really badly. At the National Theatre, I spotted a manager, and asked her why it wasn't possible to buy a tea or coffee in the interval of an evening show, and I regretted asking. Her responses were so Kafka-esque and evasive, she put me in a foul mood for the second half that I couldn't shake off. I've had loads of far more serious things that drive me mad too. I'm currently waiting on a court date for the £500 Lufthansa owe my husband for example. (They paid me but won't pay him for the exact same delay.) I tried CBT a couple of years ago that was slightly helpful in trying to deal with the stress of all these situations, but it seems the best solution is to simply be the sort of person who doesn't worry about them and let's them go. Unfortunately, that ain't me. I'm very much a Victor Meldrew type who will not ignore bad behaviour. So we are not alone. NT staff a bit uppity - tried having a convo about the snacks available with one of them, thinking my suggestions might be met with a polite, ‘yes, I will pass that on” O no.I was lectured on the need for vegan snacks and sent on my way. It took a year to get payment back from a travel company post Covid when the law stated they had to refund me. The BA tix site like a Kafkaesque plot ( then told it was under maintenance, you’d think they could pop on message on it to that effect) Post Covid breakdown, lack of training, working from home or rather the bedroom in a cramped flat but better than expensive two hour commute? Brexit? Who knows. Prob all of these things. Don’t forget how really f* young people have been through lockdown, uni non education, but yes, a definite general mutual impatience and incompetence pervades. |
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Post by londonmzfitz on Jul 1, 2023 15:25:21 GMT
I know this ticket thing happened in a time of extreme stress for me - new bathroom being fitted which was supposed to start on 6 Feb and actually finished on 6 May (awful workman, started day late, finished on the Friday at 8pm, new flooring hadn't arrived and was another 16 days .. with no bathroom sink - I could go on), but I was properly fed up of dealing with shoddy, shoddy workman and the blase office contact. A week after those works started I got home late from work - 9pm - to find this artist was touring and tickets were going on presale the next day .. checked the goss on facebook to find a friend had died really suddenly that day - had been reading her posts from her weekend away literally hours earlier. And. Boiler had stopped working a few weeks earlier and had a shocking quote from local plumber for new install (deemed existing boiler too old to repair, natch), which would mean new pipe work, flooring up, kitchen cupboards out etc - when my boss saw the quote he absolutely lost his mind (I adjusted the water pressure myself and old boiler started working again, and my boss is sorting a new for me).
I truthfully rolled my eyes at myself at Dave B's - why not use the @info email .. This week I've emailed two long-term contacts at clients to find they've gone. Perhaps my contact at STAR has gone, and there's a simple explanation and I'm not just the old bird shouting at clouds ....
For fairness the quotes from the RETAILER (excuse GIGANTIC ((hint to retailer)) text) in their emails:
1. Due to an administrative error your seats were mistakenly sold. You have now been moved to the correct seats for the Silver package.
(responded - Me having a moan)
2. If you wanted a guaranteed seat in the first 5 rows, you would have had to have purchased a Gold VIP package, Your seats are in the 6th row which is the best available in our allocation for the Silver VIP package, If you want to try to get better seats, please rebook through our website the new tickets you’d like. Once you have done this if you email us your new order number we can refund the original order at face value minus the booking fee. Apologies for the confusion (SMILEY FACE EMOJI)
(Me replying I don't want a refund and what the heck with your smiley face emoji).
3. Unfortunately, your seats were labelled incorrectly, those seats aren’t available as they belong to a customer who purchased the Gold VIP package, If you don’t want to take up the previous offer, we are happy to offer a full refund if you no longer want the seats you have been allocated, Would you like me to process this for you?
The phone call to them, I have notes and it really was condescending.
I've dithered about posting and I'm glad I did, thanks all. I'll keep the updates coming (if there are any). I did deal with one of the Directors of the retailer in a past employment - I used to run the office of London Flyposters until 2003 when Camden Council started issuing ASBO's (I still have my Court paperwork).
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Post by theatregoer22 on Jul 1, 2023 21:16:24 GMT
Gawd, do you know, with all the festering and sulking I've done on this ... that is such a reasonable and well balanced solution ... I'm on edge over this and am properly taking it personally; the bloke on the phone at the retailer was so condescending, and STAR blanking my original letter and now not answering my email from earlier this month .... You're not alone. I find I take it really badly when an organisation I'm spending my own money with treats me badly. It doesn't actually matter how trivial the issue is, it's just the fact of it. It really screws me up mentally with the injustice of how they get away with it. An example of something incredibly minor: I used a free members' ticket for a film at the BFI. (They're not actually free: you get two such tickets for your £35 annual membership.) They cancelled the show due to Covid and refused to reinstate the free ticket for when they reopened. It was only worth a tenner for goodness sake, but the attitude of their staff in emails upset me really badly. At the National Theatre, I spotted a manager, and asked her why it wasn't possible to buy a tea or coffee in the interval of an evening show, and I regretted asking. Her responses were so Kafka-esque and evasive, she put me in a foul mood for the second half that I couldn't shake off. I've had loads of far more serious things that drive me mad too. I'm currently waiting on a court date for the £500 Lufthansa owe my husband for example. (They paid me but won't pay him for the exact same delay.) I tried CBT a couple of years ago that was slightly helpful in trying to deal with the stress of all these situations, but it seems the best solution is to simply be the sort of person who doesn't worry about them and let's them go. Unfortunately, that ain't me. I'm very much a Victor Meldrew type who will not ignore bad behaviour. It almost pains me to hear that you had a bad experience with the BFI, as I've found them to be nothing but helpful. |
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Post by londonmzfitz on Jul 14, 2023 13:58:07 GMT
UPDATE - email received an hour ago (!) after sending yet another chaser through their website yesterday - following my request for an update on 06.06.23 and 30.06.23 after initially emailing them in April and May! And it's still "hard cheese".
Email says - The retailer have fulfilled their T&C's by offering me a refund if I am not happy. Quote - "Having reviewed this information, we can confirm that we are able to accept this dispute under ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution). However, after consideration of the information, we do not consider that we would be able to change the outcome for you through ADR ... "
I'm still grumpy, I'd purchased the tickets without really looking into what the different tiers involved, purchase confirmed within 3 minutes of going on sale at the price I was willing to pay. I was not interested in merch tat for the big money which is what I presumed the Gold £££ got, just wanted a good seat. I didn't see any information about what the Gold / Silver etc involved prior to the pre-sale (literally only heard about the tour the evening before) and the 3 minutes of the link going live and putting in the card details I'd bought them.
Won't use those B*ST*RDS* again (Gigantic* letters).
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Post by Dave B on Jul 14, 2023 14:45:08 GMT
UPDATE - email received an hour ago (!) after sending yet another chaser through their website yesterday - following my request for an update on 06.06.23 and 30.06.23 after initially emailing them in April and May! And it's still "hard cheese". Email says - The retailer have fulfilled their T&C's by offering me a refund if I am not happy. Quote - "Having reviewed this information, we can confirm that we are able to accept this dispute under ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution). However, after consideration of the information, we do not consider that we would be able to change the outcome for you through ADR ... " I'm still grumpy, I'd purchased the tickets without really looking into what the different tiers involved, purchase confirmed within 3 minutes of going on sale at the price I was willing to pay. I was not interested in merch tat for the big money which is what I presumed the Gold £££ got, just wanted a good seat. I didn't see any information about what the Gold / Silver etc involved prior to the pre-sale (literally only heard about the tour the evening before) and the 3 minutes of the link going live and putting in the card details I'd bought them. Won't use those B*ST*RDS* again (Gigantic* letters). Depending on how annoyed you are, if it goes into ADR it will almost certainly lead to the company in question having to pay a fee or the ADR costs. That is why so many companies are so keen to avoid this and often a second team will come in with a final and better offer. This is very typical with energy or communication companies before other such ADR/Ombudsman processes. So perhaps a bit petty but it gets a little payback.
More importantly, going to ADR and after they have confirmed that it would be acceptable acceptable grounds to consider will both bring it more to the companies attention and lead eventually to a mention in an annual report. Even if you are just one number among a lot of others, you might not be the only person and with any sort of poor customer service issue, it takes the pebbles rolling to start something bigger.
Given you know that the *issue* is acceptable under ADR, you can also detail the poor response and expect that to be considered (the STAR policy talks about this a lot), I would have thought your report of 'tough' and an ignored recorded delivery letter and the fact that you had to seek advice from CAB! I think this would be something the ADR would (SHOULD) address or ask the company to address as their whole attitude just stinks.
If it were me, I'd go ahead with the ADR. Things like this really annoy me and I'd be liberally quoting the STAR Code of Practice (linked here) about customer service and standards. I would still ask for STAR to change the outcome and make them layout why they won't and why they consider the retailers refund a suitable final resolution especally given the time and effort you have had to put in to have it addressed.
Happy to admit, I am biased. I have had huge success with ADR and Ombudsman over the years. It is a running joke with my friends as I will take unsatisfactory responses through complaints processes and then to the next level. I regularly look up management contact details if I'm not getting a decent response. In case I sound like a terrible complainer, I've never had an ADR/Ombudsman decide against me and everything that reached that far as been ruled in my favour 
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Post by londonmzfitz on Jul 16, 2023 13:01:32 GMT
Fabulous info, thanks DaveB.
I'm normally a quiet life, sigh and get on with it person, but .... The customer service was poor - who tells someone you're no longer Row B, you've been moved to Row F - and stick smiley face on the email when you complain? Lack of response to emails, zero response to signed for letter to Gigantic on 03.03.23 - and my second signed for letter to STAR, cc Gigantic on 30.03.23 ... neither responded; telephone call message to STAR, message through the STAR website end of April finally got a response - then months of waiting for STAR to respond despite their "within 14 days" - it's just crap, isn't it?
I've got copies of everything, I'll compose something and then edit it probably tomorrow to cut out the whiney bits!
I'm got it in my head it's an age thing bearing in mind the bloke I've booked to see - it's Donny Osmond - the show is on Donny's birthday in December, there will be bunch of people going that I haven't seen since before lockdown (except those that came to my best friend & fellow Osmond fan's funeral 18 months ago) so I'm mucho emotional, to be honest, and the thought of Gigantic cancelling me and doing a refund makes me fretful.
Thanks again -
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Post by Dave B on Jul 17, 2023 14:12:25 GMT
Just a little support from my today (what good timing!) as to why I will always go the Ombudsman route. We bought our first flat in March. Brand new, fitted with all modcons (the cheap version of them anyways). We have a brand new electricity smart meter and in home display. We are the first occupants and the display has never worked. So with a new washing machine and dishwasher and ventilation system, we had no idea how much we were using etc. Anyways I asked our energy provider to get the device to work, they said they had and it was too far away. I replied saying it was within their guidelines for distance. They said it was too far away that they had tried again. After some back and forth, I took the device and plugged it in directly next to the meter itself in the buildings power room - nope it won't work due to being too far from the meter but they had tried yet again. 5 times in writing they told me they had tried to get it working and that the distance was the issue despite it being, again, considerably within their operating distance.
I opened a case with the Energy Ombudsman on Wednesday last week, they accepted it as a valid complaint on the same day.
About 30 minutes ago I got a phonecall from the Ombudsman team within my energy provider who immediately admitted they they had NEVER tried to solve the issue and all the work that I had been repeatedly told had been done - none of it had actually been done. They did the work while on the phone today with me and within 5 minutes everything was working.
I've been promised an apology, goodwill gesture and letter tomorrow with the option to accept it or continue my complaint with the Ombudsman. Even if I accept - they'll feature as a case that went to the Ombudsman in year end reports and I believe they'll have to pay a fee to the Ombudsman too.
So yeah... escalations and ADR and ombudsman are available for a reason and sometimes the simple act of reporting an issue will get traction that nothing else does.
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Post by sukhavati on Jul 18, 2023 6:17:46 GMT
You can also publicly go after them through a newspaper ombudsman. Depending on your political POV, both the Telegraph and the Guardian have consumer champion columnists. You can name and shame the business. Personally, this is when I'm glad my venue is a Ticketmaster affiliate, because we're required to spell out all the conditions/times/exact ticket locations et al when we're speaking to people over the phone and at the window. We also remind them that there are no exchanges and all sales are final before completing the sale. Kind of a pain, but sometimes having a human being to spell it out is helpful, especially with our much older customers who aren't necessarily reading everything when trying to secure tickets online.
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