MSE News: Concert booking fees getting beyond a joke, Which? says

See_Tickets_Hater

See Tickets is a nasty company - misleading ticket fee information, hidden fees appearing at the end of the booking process tantamount to theft and horrible customer "service". I wish I could be bothered to take more serious action against them but given shortness of time and smallness of amount of money I won't - I do hate them enough to have joined this forum to post this though!

JP._2

To be fair, See Tickets used to have misleading advertising but has recently made changes. On the page where you choose your tickets they now show the transaction fee for each delivery method.


I'd urge people to take action if they do find misleading advertising. I have made several complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, resulting is changes by the companies complained about, new guidelines from the Committees of Advertising Practice, a nationwide compliance campaign by the CAP and changes by lots of theatres, venues and ticket agents.


Of the companies that I found to have misleading advertising a year ago, 3% have got rid of fees completely, 28% now clearly display their fees and 17% have made significant improvements but still need to do more. That still leaves 55% with misleading advertising, but there is more action planned for them this year. Don't just sit back and accept it.

See_Tickets_Hater

JP. wrote: »

To be fair, See Tickets used to have misleading advertising but has recently made changes. On the page where you choose your tickets they now show the transaction fee for each delivery method.

On the page where I choose the tickets the booking fee was clearly displayed but not the transaction fee. I didn't notice any information about the transaction fee until after I had submitted the payment. On the ticket information page, it stated that for print at home tickets there was a £2.00 transaction fee and for first class post ticket there was a £2.50 transaction fee but no mention of a transaction fee for picking up from the venue which is the option I had selected. I'll try to rev myself up to complain to advertising standards!

JP._2

See_Tickets_Hater wrote: »

On the page where I choose the tickets the booking fee was clearly displayed but not the transaction fee. I didn't notice any information about the transaction fee until after I had submitted the payment. On the ticket information page, it stated that for print at home tickets there was a £2.00 transaction fee and for first class post ticket there was a £2.50 transaction fee but no mention of a transaction fee for picking up from the venue which is the option I had selected. I'll try to rev myself up to complain to advertising standards!

Which show were you booking for?

See_Tickets_Hater

JP. wrote: »

Which show were you booking for?

It was the Christmas at Kew illuminated trail (which is not that great by the way)!, which is now finished until next year. The ticket info page is still live but apparently as a new forum user I'm not allowed to post links in case I'm a spammer.

Have submitted a complaint to Adevertising Standards now.

JP._2

It was only about three or four weeks ago that I spotted the changes on See Tickets. You probably bought your tickets shortly before they improved things.


We're getting there gradually.

Tony_The_Wool

Booked tickets for Jack Whitehall for 9/3/14 - paid £27.50 per ticket which is reasonable but then had to pay £3.50 per ticket booking fee and then £2.25 handling fee - total of £9.25 in additional charges - they then wanted £5.99 to post to me!!!!! Outrageous. I am collecting the tickets from the box office tonight and will be asking what the £9.25 is for - it can't all be debit/credit card charges as I own a business and the average transaction costs about 35 - 45p.
Assuming tonights audience is about 5,000, the Liverpool Echo Arena are set to make the following from online ticket sales:

Assuming 5,000 tickets @ £3.50 per ticket = £17,500
Plus £2.25 handling fee for say 2,000 sets of tickets = £4,500
(only one handling fee per purchase of tickets, most are probably bought in pairs but some are obviously group purchases)
So a total of £22,000 in additional charges!!!!!!
WHAT A RIP OFF - SHAME ON YOU LIVERPOOL ECHO ARENA AND ALL OTHERS WHO DO THE SAME.

joerispoli

[FONT=&quot]Hi Coconutt
Just quoted you in a posting today. Had the same problem AXS. I have complained to them, not that I expect to get any joy out of them. Did you get anywhere. I had to pay a £9.50 in extra charges! With no explanation as to why ?
[/FONT]
Good Luck
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

Just_Passing_Bi

Any ticket sites that have "reasonable" fees?

ATG site, 3 tickets = £102.00 with fees, £122.00 :eek: :eek: :mad: and that's for collection at the box office :mad: :mad:

Imnoexpert_2

Booked tickets to see Aston Villa (I know - must be mad....)

£2 booking fee on a £50 transaction was ok.

But because I said I wanted to book a car parking space and needed to see how close it was to the stadium I looked at google maps then phoned back 2 minutes later to book the £6 car park only to be whacked with another £2 booking fee (because it is a new booking) even though it then all arrived in the same envelope.

Very silly