A word of warning regarding being a football fan

piplarter

Anybody else out there get caught in the 'sting' carried out between Mastercard and FIFA during the ticketing for the last World Cup Finals in Germany?

Having only been allocated one ticket from the official England supporters club I applied via FIFA for 'Conditional Tickets'. These are tickets which may or most likely not become available for sale should tickets be returned or unsold etc. (these could ONLY be bought using a Masteracrd as far as I am aware!) As such I duly applied for all 3 opening England games and the final for myself and my Wife, hoping we would get lucky, which came to a total of 1210 Euros (over £800). However what Mastercard did was take this money from my card without any tickets actually being allocated to me. They have now had this money for almost 4 months and I still have not had it returned to my account. Obviously I am paying interest on this lost money, money for which I have received no goods. The fact that money was deducted without any tickets being available I think was extremely questionable practice and I feel that money should only have been taken upon someone actually being allocated tickets not on the off chance that ticket would become available. If you multiply this by an unknown number of Worldwide fans, I can imagine this produces a very tidy return for those perpetuating this, both in terms of interest on the full amount they have held for 4 months and in interest charges on unpaid balances but would question whether it is actually legal?
I know that 'Caveat Emptor' should apply and that I probably should have read the terms and conditions thoroughly but who actually does? In my naivety I probably trusted too much, what I would have previously called reputable companies so to say I am disappointed in this practice is an understatement and have since destroyed both my Mastercards.

As such I would welcome any comments, suggestions or questions from any other football fans who were caught by this, especially as I believe UEFA and Mastercard are looking for a similar link up for the Euro Championships in Austria & Switzerland in 2008!

Phillip Larter:mad:

Gorgeous_George

I think this is illegal and should be referred to the banking ombudsman or whichever body deals with such things. Might be worth reporting it to the Police, as I believe, this could be criminal practice.



GG

Alt

I believe the fact that the money was being taken well in advance was clearly highlighted as I also do not read the t&c but was aware of this fact.I am surprised that you have not had the money back. I was lucky in that I was actually allocated my conditional tickets (36 hours before the match, lucky i was checking my mail!) for a lower category and the difference was returned to my cc on the 9th of July.