Buy some cheap Theatre Tickets? - Watch Out

tedc_2

As a birthday treat for my wife I bought 2 tickets for "Ratpack", at London's Savoy Theatre, from allticketseurope.com

On arrival at the theatre I picked up the two tickets to find that the face value printed on is £ 22.50 each.

The day after I look at at Credit card account to find I have been charged £113.50 for these two tickets!

I chase up the agency who say " I understand your point but this is a group rate that is only applicable if 8 or more people are booked and paid for - this we did at our risk if less go - we take the block booking and sell it on at the individual rate applicable to cover our purchasing power"

This looks like a scam to me!

I can see no mention of this in any terms & conditions!

Should I follow it up elsewhere?

tedc

Update - 17th May - Found a group called "The Society Of Ticket Agents & Retailers" who are trying to control this sort of scam. They have asked for details & we'll see what develops.
This group can be viewed at https://www.s-t-a-r.org.uk which some might find useful.

Darksun

If it's not in the smallprint, they're breaking the law. Even if it is in the smallprint, it's on shakey legal ground for not making it clear. Contact your credit card company, they can perform a chargeback, also contact trading standards.

I found the following name and address, this might just be the administrator for the website rather than the owner of the company, could still come in useful though.

Domain name: allticketseurope.com

Registrant:
Andrew Patrick (HPPNE) peter.moran@itcommunicationsolutions.com
235 Earls Court Road
London, NA SW5 9FE
United Kingdom
Phone: +1 (107) 815-7356 ext.65

webmasterpolo

-I don't know if I missed this, but if they buy hundreds of tickets and get a discount, then pass some of this discount onto you and some into their profit, sounds fair to me.

As long as say the price direct from the venue was more than they charged you, you still saved money. You have to expect them to make a profit from the deal otherwise they wouldn't exist to get you the discount.

If they are breaching the venues T+C then report it to them, I think it's probably more likely to be some admin error printing the wrong ticket price. If they charged you more than the venue charges, then yes they ripped you off and you should complain to them and the venue.

-Web

geo555

You have definatly been done. On their website they offer the tickets at £25 for the upper circle. The highest price tickets are £47.50 face value for the stalls, on the site it has it as £50 including booking fee and VAT. Complain again to someone with some sense, its always easy to be fobbed off.

tedc_2

Darksun wrote:

If it's not in the smallprint, they're breaking the law. Even if it is in the smallprint, it's on shakey legal ground for not making it clear. Contact your credit card company, they can perform a chargeback, also contact trading standards.

I found the following name and address, this might just be the administrator for the website rather than the owner of the company, could still come in useful though.

Domain name: allticketseurope.com

Registrant:
Andrew Patrick (HPPNE) peter.moran@itcommunicationsolutions.com
235 Earls Court Road
London, NA SW5 9FE
United Kingdom
Phone: +1 (107) 815-7356 ext.65

Thank you for your reply. It has prompted me to take it up with Visa.
Visa have put this in dispute with the agency and we'll see what develops.

Their (Abbey tickets - alias Eurotickets) terms & conditions are on the web page and can be roughly translated as "have a nice day!"

tedc_2

geo555 wrote:

You have definatly been done. On their website they offer the tickets at £25 for the upper circle. The highest price tickets are £47.50 face value for the stalls, on the site it has it as £50 including booking fee and VAT. Complain again to someone with some sense, its always easy to be fobbed off.

Thanks for your response.
Yes, I thought I was buying tickets at face value 47.00 (ish). What I got was tickets face value 22.50.
Have lodged a dispute with VISA.

tedc_2

webmasterpolo wrote:

-I don't know if I missed this, but if they buy hundreds of tickets and get a discount, then pass some of this discount onto you and some into their profit, sounds fair to me.

As long as say the price direct from the venue was more than they charged you, you still saved money. You have to expect them to make a profit from the deal otherwise they wouldn't exist to get you the discount.

If they are breaching the venues T+C then report it to them, I think it's probably more likely to be some admin error printing the wrong ticket price. If they charged you more than the venue charges, then yes they ripped you off and you should complain to them and the venue.

-Web

The price from the venue was 22.50 per ticket. Total 45.00
What they have charged me is 113.50

The online description was two 47 pound tickets
What I got was two 22.50 tickets.

tedc_2

tedc wrote:

Thank you for your reply. It has prompted me to take it up with Visa.
Visa have put this in dispute with the agency and we'll see what develops.

Their (Abbey tickets - alias Eurotickets) terms & conditions are on the web page and can be roughly translated as "have a nice day!"

Further to this, The "Price Indications (Resale Of Tickets Act) 1994 says as follow:-

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The Regulations require the following information to be given to consumers —
(a) the price and any detail which appears on the ticket which relates to or affects the rights conferred or to be conferred on the holder of the ticket which has been caused to be placed on it by the holder or promoter of the entertainment to which the ticket relates (including the location of any seat or space); and

(b) the location of the seat or space (if any) and any features of such which would adversely affect the holder's use or enjoyment and which are known, or could reasonably be expected to be known, to the reseller (regulation 4).



The information must be given before a contract is concluded and, except in the case of contracts concluded by telephone, any details appearing on a ticket must be given in writing (a provision is included for the latter requirement to be satisfied by showing the ticket) (regulation 5).

Information, if given orally, must be given audibly and in a manner that is comprehensible to the consumer and, if given in writing, must be given clearly, prominently and legibly (regulation 6). Information must be accurate (regulation 7).

Criminal penalties are provided for breach of the Regulations (regulation 8).

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The part saying "The information must be given before a contract is .." appears to apply to the price "quoted on the ticket" (para a)
Which makes it appear to be a criminal offence not to advise what the ticket face price is!

Unless I'm reading it wrong!

Kaminari_2

I buy my tickets through lastminute.com, usually for about £10 a pop or £20 with dinner. the price is never printed on the ticket when i pick them up.

tedc_2

Readers might find it useful to know what have been (probably) the final actions in this saga.

1) "The Society Of London Theatres" (https://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk) has reviewed all of the data & agreed that a possible offence had been committed.
They have fired off all of the data to:-
Westminster Trading Standards + Charing Cross Police + The Department for Culture, Media & Sport + The Society Of Ticket Agents & Retailers + The Dept Of Trade & Industry + The Savoy Theatre + The Show Producers!
Now that was impressive!
They also point out that we should only book tickets through members of STAR, The Society Of Ticket Agents & Retailers (visit https://www.s-t-a-r.org.uk) which I will do in future as the transaction will be protected, to a degree.

2) The Halifax Bank (My Credit Card Company) were unable to get the ticket fees back but have offered £55.00 as compensation from their insurance. That is also very impressive.

Well done to all who helped and advised.

Many Thanks

Mirtos

Hi.
I just wanted to say that I work in the theatre so have to go a lot, and have found some good ways of finding discounts - if you like to go to theatre, I thought these might help a bit...

1) subscribe to the whatsonstage.com newsletter - they send out lots of cheap deals and group outing deals that can be a real saving.

2) the National Theatre (by waterloo bridge) has a Travelex £10 season where all their shows have £10 tickets. You can book in advance but they sell out quick, or they have 'day seats' available from the box office from 10am on the day of performance. The National also has a priority booking service, which costs £10 a year - however, this means that you can always get the £10 tickets as you can book before the general public, so it can be a real moneysaver (probably saves me about £1000 a year!).

3) The Royal Court theatre offers really good value tickets for £5 - £15, and the plays are all cool new stuff of excellent quality.

4)think about opting for a "fringe" theatre rather than a west end one - lots of the more reputable fringe theatres have better standards than the west end (!) and often offer discounts on their already cheaper tickets. Try checking out the following:
The Bush Theatre (currently offering tickets to all 4 of this seasons shows for just £40 the lot!)
The Soho Theatre, Theatre 503, The Arcola Theatre, The Donmar Warehouse (call them and ask to be signed up to their text mailing list - they regularly send out free ticket offers to fill press nights etc..), The Almeida Theatre, The King's Head Theatre.

5) The Globe Theatre on the southbank, offers standing tickets for just £5, and seated for £15 ish. It's a reconstruction of an Elizabethan theatre, performances are amazingly good, and it's all very exciting and open air - a must for theatre lovers.

NB all these theatres have websites and friendly staff, so calll and ask what extra discounts might be on offer.

Also, bear in mind that even west end shows are rarely sold out - especially if it's a long run. If you can be a bit flexible about date or price you shouldn't have much difficulty going through their box office direct, so never ever use agents or touts. London Theatre is struggling to survive and wants your custom - so why pay top dollar to these sharks when you can buy direct from the theatre for less!

Hope that helps in future.
xx