TicketsNow.com : Rip Off : Yo Yo Ma Milwaukee Concert

This should get interesting. I am entering into a battle with TicketsNow.com over the use of deceptive tactics to sell tickets. Before you read this, first let me say: I do accept partial responsibility for this situation. I made an emotional decision to purchase tickets from TicketsNow.com who are a ticket scalper portal. I have been an online marketer for years, and it takes a lot to scam me, but I definitely walked into this one head first.

The back story to this is that my Fiance is a cellist. She has had a tough year and I really wanted to take her to see Yo Yo Ma at the Pabst theater in Milwaukee. I knew that the ticket scalping businesses would snatch up all the good seats (which I am amazed is still legal) and I was prepared to spend a little more for the tickets. I am fundamentally opposed to companies like Ticket King and other companies that use expensive software to bash away on online ticket sellers, using proxies to fake ip’s. The process is disgusting to me – and honestly – I can’t believe people don’t put some rocks through their windows. Maybe they do and I don’t know about it. Anyway, I have been known to go against my beliefs on occasion so I can’t complain too much, I pulled out my credit card and contributed to the problem.

My issue isn’t with the cost of the tickets, $150 a piece. I would have paid that much for decent seats. My issue is that the website uses a seating diagram that very conveniently implies that these tickets are in a nice spot in the house, in fact they are literally the WORST seats in the house. This show isn’t sold out. I could have walked across the street to the Pabst and purchased them for $55. Seats on the 1st section are $130 a piece and are still available.

When you purchase the tickets, you see a message that says Front Row in Section, the night I bought them, it said Front Row in Section * <– there was an asterix which is no longer there as of today.

As you can see the section says 3LC, when I bought tickets it said 3RC, Row A. This is where the seating diagram comes in handy (for them). The seating chart is vague, but appears to have all the information you need. However, the illusion is that the row is actually the seats, and the section (to me and everyone else I have shown this too) would be left center, or in my case right center.

Here is the image of the pabst theater that they use next to the tickets:

The information that is conveniently missing is the 3LC (3RC) etc. What is  noticeable is the section A.

I lingered on the tickets for a while, trying to make up my mind whether or not to buy them. I decided I would go to the next purchase screen and order them.

At this point a box popped up that said that my password for Verified by Visa was required to make the purchase, then without me touching a key, an error box popped up and the screen forced through to the purchase page without me being able to stop it. Interesting, this certainly looks like they are forcing transactions to go through. Why would they do this? Do they benefit from credit card fraud? Do they know that a certain percentage of fraud will never be reported? I have worked in online fraud for many years and I know that the ticket industry is rife. This is speculation on my part, but I certainly found it strange that the website could force a bypass on me having to enter my Visa verification password. I will leave that up to Visa to determine (I have sent them my concerns).

Well, my gut was telling me not to deal with scalpers, and as soon as I saw the transaction go through I had a sick feeling in my gut. It was impulsive on my part. I was trying to do something special for my Fiance. I really couldn’t afford it, but it would be a nice evening. I decided to check the Pabst theater prices and chart so that I could accurately see where my seats are so I could surprise Sarah (my Fiance) with my awesome seats. Well, this is what I see:

WOW! Can you see the difference? The sections are clearly marked and would you look at that? 3RC is the very last section and the worst seats in the house!. I walked right into it.

This entire research project took less than 2 minutes. I immediately called customer service at TicketsNow.com, a maze of options leading to no answer. I emailed customer service and the “manager” at manager@ticketsnow.com and told them that I had placed an order less than 2 minutes ago, I had not recieved confirmation that it had gone through but that I wanted to cancel it because I was clearly misled by their diagram of the theater.

2 minutes later the confirmation came through. I responded to that and forwarded it to manager@ticketsnow.com and explained my situation. I was polite, but I knew what to expect. So, I called my bank. I explained to them what happened. I said I wanted to give TicketsNow.com the opportunity to cancel the order. They listened to the story of how it went down and agreed that this is a clear case of misleading a consumer.

The next day, I received the email from TicketsNow.com that I expected. They said “tough luck”. I sent them back a polite reply. I told them about my career as an internet marketer and search engine optimization expert and that if they behaved honorably, I would be more than willing to write them a glowing review and spend some time making sure hundreds of thousands of people saw it. However, if they didn’t stop the transaction, I would definitely go out of my way to tell hundreds of thousands of people of my experience.

I mentioned my dealings with Venue.com, how they had taken advantage of Sarah and within 48 hours the search engines were plastered with my negative experience with them. We received a phone call from Venue telling us that her money would be returned and would we please take down all the bad press. My story about Venue.com ended up costing them quite a bit of money in lost sales and I feel good that I was able to help steer consumers away from the company. Every email I received thanking me for the review of Venue.com that prevented one more person from getting sucked into their predatory practices, gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

So, in the beginning of this, I said I take partial responsibility for this. I didn’t do my due diligence on TicketsNow.com, which is very unlike me. Had I done some research, I would have seen all the complaints about the company and their practices. I would have also read about the $500 mil  lawsuit against TicketsNow.com and Ticketmaster. If I had done my homework on the company, I never would have pulled out my credit card. However, me not doing my research on the company is one thing, using a sparse mis-leading map of the theater to increase ticket sales on scalped tickets is something altogether different.

So. There is the story, but it’s not over. Now comes the online assault. I spoke to my bank and I will be getting my money back. I will send the tickets back to TicketsNow.com when they get here. I do not want anything for free. I will also post all of my email correspondence with them as it happens. I am afraid that I am going to have to take it one step further. For the next month, I will be using all of my SEO and marketing skills to make sure the WORLD knows to stay away from this company. I will have PPC ads, top search engine listings,  I will even post videos on 30 sites, and email my list of 300,000 people and ask them to pass it on. I will also be bugging our Wisconsin politicians about this company. Milwaukee is a music loving city, and a city of blue collar workers. Ticket Scalpers should be tarred, feathered, and run out on a rail. I am embarrassed that I fell prey to them.  I can afford the loss I suppose, but many people cannot, and if I fell for it – many, many others will too.

I will begin posting the emails and saturating the internet tonight.

MESSAGE TO TicketsNow.com:

If you are a representative of TicketsNow.com, and I know you will be reading this. I want you to realize that it was really silly to not take my proposed plan of paying you the face value of the tickets plus handling charges. Your tactics are despicable. The music industry, venues, and industry have been raping fans for years. Your adding poison to the mix has pushed me to the limit and I am going to cause you as much headache as I possibly can. Don’t bother trying to troll comments on this blog, they are all reviewed and I wont post them.

Watch the first page of Google in the coming weeks. You will recognize my mark.

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• pabst seating chart