Ticketmaster Scalping their own tickets - AVOID Official Platinum tickets option

lcfctom

So today I'm feeling completely scammed by Ticketmaster. After over a year of not going to venues I was very excited to see shows for Alan Partridge. My Fiancé and I love everything AP. So I'm excited to get tickets and want to get them early so we can have the best tickets. Turns out Ticketmaster who I thought I could trust have tickets. Before they're available you don't get to see ticket prices anywhere. So I get online as soon as they are available and different to how it was when I was buying before I don't see a way to select my seat only three options, Basic to Platinum. So wanting the best it must be Platinum. Weird though what are these categories? There's a i button but the descriptions are weird and vague talking about the best tickets for fans. I choose this then have to say what area I want to sit in. By now it's been a few minutes so I'm worried that I might be missing the best seats. Still no option to choose my seat. Having researched before I know the rows and seats I want. I select to show me the seats and I get some too far away from the ones I want. No option to choose my own still. So I reject and try again. More time passed! This time a better row and only slightly off. By now 5 minutes have passed and the seats it shows are better but the price seems really high and no indication of if this is face value. I reject again thinking this can't be right. Now I select and it says, oops can't find any seats. So I'm dejected I lost my chance at the best seats. So I think about becoming a member of the theatre by paying £35 because that may let me have access to different seats. Investigating that I try ticketmaster again and hey presto there are seats so I buy them at £115 each. Curious I now find I've got an email from another ticket provider who hadn't shown availability for pre-sale before so I go on there and it turns out I paid £115 for £75 seats. And because it's not an obvious link on the Ticketmaster site I google it and turns out Official Platinum is 'demand led' ticket pricing where they make up their own prices for their own tickets (not resale apparently) and this is shoved in your face at the time of purchase as one of the main options. So the lesson, don't be stupid like me, avoid this option, it's a scam in my mind. I've been ripped off for £80 when I could have easily bought tickets elsewhere on the same row for £80 less. I'll re-emphasise at no point did ticketmaster ever show me what the face value of these tickets was otherwise I wouldn't have bought them. I thought I was buying from an official trustworthy first party seller and not some shady scalper. How wrong I was! Well I will enjoy AP in decent seats but I feel violated and ripped off. Ticketmaster have found a new way around the secondary market by jacking up prices themselves as a first party seller!

Lavendyr

lcfctom said:

So today I'm feeling completely scammed by Ticketmaster. After over a year of not going to venues I was very excited to see shows for Alan Partridge. My Fiancé and I love everything AP. So I'm excited to get tickets and want to get them early so we can have the best tickets. Turns out Ticketmaster who I thought I could trust have tickets. Before they're available you don't get to see ticket prices anywhere.

So I get online as soon as they are available and different to how it was when I was buying before I don't see a way to select my seat only three options, Basic to Platinum. So wanting the best it must be Platinum. Weird though what are these categories? There's a i button but the descriptions are weird and vague talking about the best tickets for fans. I choose this then have to say what area I want to sit in.

By now it's been a few minutes so I'm worried that I might be missing the best seats. Still no option to choose my seat. Having researched before I know the rows and seats I want. I select to show me the seats and I get some too far away from the ones I want. No option to choose my own still. So I reject and try again. More time passed! This time a better row and only slightly off. By now 5 minutes have passed and the seats it shows are better but the price seems really high and no indication of if this is face value. I reject again thinking this can't be right. Now I select and it says, oops can't find any seats. So I'm dejected I lost my chance at the best seats.

So I think about becoming a member of the theatre by paying £35 because that may let me have access to different seats. Investigating that I try ticketmaster again and hey presto there are seats so I buy them at £115 each. Curious I now find I've got an email from another ticket provider who hadn't shown availability for pre-sale before so I go on there and it turns out I paid £115 for £75 seats. And because it's not an obvious link on the Ticketmaster site I google it and turns out Official Platinum is 'demand led' ticket pricing where they make up their own prices for their own tickets (not resale apparently) and this is shoved in your face at the time of purchase as one of the main options.

So the lesson, don't be stupid like me, avoid this option, it's a scam in my mind. I've been ripped off for £80 when I could have easily bought tickets elsewhere on the same row for £80 less. I'll re-emphasise at no point did ticketmaster ever show me what the face value of these tickets was otherwise I wouldn't have bought them. I thought I was buying from an official trustworthy first party seller and not some shady scalper. How wrong I was! Well I will enjoy AP in decent seats but I feel violated and ripped off. Ticketmaster have found a new way around the secondary market by jacking up prices themselves as a first party seller!

OP I'm sorry, this was really hard to read as a block of text. I've broken it up into something I think I can follow so will read and reply properly shortly.

Lavendyr

It does sound confusing and I wouldn't be delighted with the situation either. It does sound as though some tickets have been jacked up in price from what you say. I've never had an experience like this with Ticketmaster before and have always been able to select my seats, but maybe we are just in a new world. I guess the question is - could you really have bought those tickets elsewhere at that face value? TIcketmaster isn't a tout after all - it's a genuine booking agent. Did you find those tickets cheaper elsewhere? 

Oh - one other thing is that Ticketmaster does, I believe, offer 3P resales in certain cases. Whenever I've seen that it's seemed very clear that this is the case. I wonder if you just missed out because of the initial hesitation. 

I'm unconvinced that becoming a member of the theatre had any direct connection to your eventual ticket purchase. That could have been an unhappy coincidence.

Ultimately I don't know though, I'm just guessing. Everything is in crazy demand right now for obvious reasons. I guess you pay what you want to pay - it's always your decision. If you thought those tix were worth the price then that's that, really. I hope you enjoy the show.

swingaloo2

I cant see where you have looked on the Ticketmaster site as it shows quite clearly the price and the seat numbers when I look at it.  The only way to get to the Official Platinum tickets is by going into the 'Resale' section and it does say that price on there fluctuates with demand. But it does also say that tickets sold by fans are at the price they paid or less so it is confusing how you have come to pay above the proper ticket price.

Preacher64

There are always Platinum and VIP packages on Ticketmaster for popular shows. They’re basically holding on to the first few rows in the stalls and circle and applying a surcharge to them. It’s no longer a random lottery to hopefully get a good seat at face value. None of the extra money goes to the performer, it’s purely Ticketmaster profit and does seem a bit underhand.

If possible, try to buy tickets from the venue direct i.e. ATG or similar. They have their own allocation of tickets and they’re sold at face value plus a smaller booking fee than Ticketmaster take.

Enjoy the show!

lcfctom

@Lavendyr Thanks for editing me, I was on a bit of a rant

I'm an experienced ticket buyer and was definitely not on the resale site. Had both the app and website on the go and both showed the same options. Also, fortunately, I hadn't paid for theater membership that was where I was going as a next step.

I've also never experienced this with TM and won't be using them again as its an extremely misleading experience.

@Preacher64 I agree and will never use TM again. I used them before because they had a simple experience where you could select seats, even for popular events, when some other sellers did random seat allocation, as TM seemingly now do. My fiance is quite small so we look for tickets where she's not going to get a blocked view.

The worst part of this is, I did receive an email from other sellers after I bought my ticket and out of curiosity went to see what was available and there were better seats available at face value. So not sure how TM justify what they're doing apart from lining their own pockets of course.