See tickets fan-to-fan sales

Lucyjane83

Hello, hope this is the right place to post this. I’m hoping that someone may be able to offer me some advice. 

I bought tickets to the World Darts Championship back in August. I made a mistake with the ticket dates and contacted See tickets immediately. This was before the general sale took place so was hoping they could resell. I received no response. 

I the contacted them about their fan to fan sales, again no response. 

Still stuck with 5 tickets I couldn’t use, I kept an eye on the fan to fan ticket sales and noticed in early November that I could now list my tickets. The process was laborious and quite frankly, stupid, but they sold within about an hour and I followed all their archaic instructions. 

I was told I would be paid 5 days after the event (which took place on 17/12). On 22/12 I received an email to say I had been paid, but it could take up to 5 working days to clear in my account. With the Xmas bank holidays, I gave it until 09/01 to start chasing them. 

The only way to contact See seems to be via their customer service portal. I have sent 10s of messages and have sent emails (to the same fan to fan address I tried back in August). I have had 4 responses. Three of them generic stock emails (two promising updates by the end of the week- updates which don’t come) and one telling me that they’re dealing with a third party. 

I have also submitted a letter of complaint and indicated that I would take this further should I not receive a satisfactory resolution to this. 

My question is, what would be my next step in this instance? I’ve looked through a few websites and nothing seems to fit this scenario. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

Lucyjane83

Any ideas? 

RefluentBeans

When did you submit your complaint? Checking their complaints section it says that a response is within 28 days, so it may be worth waiting until then.

What are the terms for the user-user ticket sales? Who is the contract between - you and See Tickets or you and the other buyer? 

Lucyjane83

Thanks for your response. I think the contract is with See - https://www.seetickets.com/content/fan-to-fan-terms

I have followed everything to the book. They have made no suggestion that there is any dispute from the buyers side. I emailed the buyer with the tickets as soon as they became available and copied in a See email address as requested. Their communications just say it will be processed ‘in the coming days’ (it never is). I’m £238- odd down. I want to be able to put pressure on them to give me my money. 28 days from the point of complaint seems a little generous when the issue isn’t showing any signs of being resolved. 

RefluentBeans

The terms do seem to indicate that See Tickets are in breach here.

After the complaints process is exhausted the next step is to file a letter before action basically saying that you are intending to take legal action if they don’t pay up.

The issue with this is it is a hostile action - if you received a ‘pay now or we’re going to sue you’ you would probably consider it a hostile action rather than a negotiation in good faith tactic.

Personally, I would try and wait a little bit longer for the response to the complaint. As it happened over Christmas, it may just have been a human error at the time when everyone takes time off. Hopefully the complaint will prompt them to review your situation in more detail. If you can find a CEO email online you can attempt that (it normally gets redirected to a more senior customer service team than the normal situations). If all else fails, you have got an opportunity to claim via small claims, with a letter before action first. 

Lucyjane83

Thank you for the advice. It’s appreciated.  Unfortunately, it seems that I am not the only person in this situation. I have seen other complaints online that mirror my own. If they had offered any reasonable explanation for not paying, maybe I would be more understanding. However this just feels like a large, powerful company doing whatever they wish.