By Alfred Branch, Jr.
Just days before tonight’s scheduled concert in New York by classic rocker John Fogerty, some Ticketmaster customers who had purchased tickets for the show weeks in advance were informed of a little glitch in their order.
A glitch to the tune of these fans having to cough up an extra $100 per ticket.
Some internet message boards have been buzzing with the complaints of the mix up, which led some angry customers to simply cancel their order and skip the Hammerstein Ballroom show. An undisclosed number of tickets had been sold at $49.50 per ticket, face value, with an additional $9.30 per ticket in fees.
But according to Ticketmaster, those mezzanine-level tickets, were supposed to sell for $148 a piece, not including fees totaling $18.90 per ticket. Customers were given options on what they wanted to do in light of the re-priced tickets, but because many of them were only notified late last month, they did not have a lot of time to decide.
The following is an excerpt from the Ticketmaster email fans received:
Hello, this is Ticketmaster Customer Service with important information regarding your order of tickets to see John Fogerty scheduled at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Friday November 2nd, 2007 at 7:30 PM. Due to a programming error, the face value of the ticket was incorrectly quoted to you at the time of your purchase.
We have secured the same tickets quoted to you at the time of sale, but now need authorization from you to charge your credit card the correct price of your order to process your order. The correct fees are as follows:
Face value of tickets, $148.00
Facility fee of $2.00 per ticket
Ticketmaster service charge of $16.90 per ticket
Order processing fee of $4.90 per order
Your grand total is dependant on the number of tickets purchased.
You may also choose to exchange your tickets for tickets located in the General Admission section at no additional cost or you may receive a full refund.
Whichever option you choose please respond to this email by Thursday November 1, 2007 at 4:00 PM Eastern with a phone number and we will contact you and handle the changes to your account.
Although extremely rare, occasional errors such as this can occur. Live Nation and Ticketmaster sincerely regret any inconvenience that this may have caused.
Thank you for using Ticketmaster. We really appreciate your business.
Bonnie Poindexter, spokesperson for Ticketmaster, said the company is dealing with situation, but she declined to elaborate on how. “Due to seating reconfigurations at the venue, some ticket prices were revised at the time tickets were sold online. A limited number of online ticket buyers were affected and we are in contact with them directly to resolve.”
