TGIF

Well this was a great week. In New York it rained every day since Sunday and now it's finally sunny. If it were up to me, the coming out of the sun should signal the end of the work week for all in the New York area who had to deal with this weather.

I should note that there was a three hour break in the rain on Wednesday. Just in time for the Mets game which I had tickets for. More on that over the weekend when I have more time.

This was a long and trying week for me so rather than a cheery post, you get to read another post taken from the Opie and Anthony playbook. Opie and Anthony are a radio show that invented the F-U Friday. They have a dedicated phone line for those who wish to rant about something or give someone the big F-U. This is not my first F-U Friday entry. For those less regular readers, here is another.

About a month ago I bought second round playoff tickets for the New York Rangers. They were eliminated in the first round so the game never happened. $500 later and five weeks later TicketMaster finally credited me $497.

Why not the full $500? Well after speaking to a sales rep (read: not customer service) they told me that their policy was that this charge was nonrefundable. I asked to be transferred to someone whom I can speak to about that and he transferred me to customer service. [Editors Note: I would be remiss if I did not give them a kudos, as everyone I spoke with at TicketMaster was American and spoke English well.]

The first rep I spoke with told me that was part of the terms I agreed to when I made the purchase. Does anyone actually read the terms to any of these transactions or do they just hit submit? Not that I likely would have read the terms of sale more carefully, I did not exactly have time.

You see, TicketMaster puts a time limit on each stage of the checkout process. If that time runs out, you lose the seats. So while I had 2 minutes to accept the seats they offered me and then maybe 4 minutes to enter my personal information and credit card, there was no time to go through the pages and pages of fine print. While on hold waiting for a supervisor, I had 10 minutes to check out their website and buried in, they mention that this fee is nonrefundable.

I know it's only $3 but there's the principle behind this matter. Everyone assumes that items can be returned (unused or unopened) for a refund. Why should this be any different? I never liked TicketMaster for a number of reasons. First, they are a monopoly. This is really the only site to purchase tickets to large events. Unless I go directly to a physical box office, most venues direct me to the TicketMaster site to purchase tickets. It's almost impossible for someone else to come and provide the means to sell tickets to major events (resellers don't count). Second, they charge fees for every little thing, adding almost $10 to the cost of the ticket. It would be even more if I had them overnight the tickets but I cheaped out and chose regular mail.

The long version of this story includes one supervisor getting snippy with me and then hanging out and when I called back to speak to someone else, I sat on hold for quite some time.

In the end I got my $3 refunded but that doesn't change anything. Today, TicketMaster is honored on this very special Friday.

Happy Friday!

"Friday night, Saturday, Sunday morning
just waiting for the afternoon so I can be a kid again."
-Edna's Goldfish, Veronica Sawyer