Old thread revived.
I just purchased from Ticketmaster. I haven’t bought tickets from them for several years. I don’t recall ever having bought through them and having things go real smooth. Against my own judgement I moved forward.
It actually wasn’t bad. My old account was still available, however I was prompted to make a new password. Fair enough.
Choice of credit card to Ticketmaster or PayPal. I went with PayPal - what I considered the lesser of 2 evils.
The problems started with the actual receipt of my tickets. I’m pretty sure it must have said ‘Mobile’ but it never occurred to me what that entailed. I’ve always bought tickets and either downloaded & printed them on my home printer or had them sent to me by mail. Last time was about 2 months ago so we’re not talking dark ages here.
Nope. The choice was to receive them on your mobile (smart) phone. Period.
I don’t want them on my phone, I want tickets in hand. You know, the tickets I just paid for.
Incidentally, if you don’t have a smart phone. Well, too bad. No tickets for you.
There is an option to have your bought tickets transferred to a 3rd party. Perhaps a friend.
WTF!!
“Excuse me friend. Would you mind if I have concert tickets sent to your phone. Why no, you’re not invited. I only want you to hold my tickets on your phone because you see, I don’t own a phone.
Oh and by the way. I’ll need to borrow your phone the day of the concert because your phone holds my tickets and there’s no way to move them from your phone. Hope you don’t mind that I’ll be leaving you without a phone for the night. I’ll also have access to all your files & contacts. Hope you don’t have an emergency.”
There was no prior warning about this mobile business. As a matter of fact I had to receive a confirmation code to login to my account. That came via land line. So I wasn’t aware a mobile was compulsory, other than: Delivery Method: Mobile. But that wasn’t until money had changed hands.
I confess I paid little attention because it had never come up before and to me it was incomprehensible that I wouldn’t be able to download tickets to my desktop.
I still wanted tickets in hand so I contact. There is one way to reach out to Ticketmaster and that is through a virtual assistant bot. Nothing quite says we could give a rats ass about your question or your problem like a virtual assistant bot. They have never helped anyone.
After a series of questions (with the bot) I was informed an agent would contact me via email. It’s been 5 days. It isn’t going to happen. So much for Ticketmaster customer service. It wasn’t unexpected.
Yesterday I realized I should cave and receive tickets on my smart phone, or quite likely, be out the money I paid for them.
It wasn’t easy.
Step 1, login to Ticketmaster using my phone. No. Doesn’t work. I rarely use my phone for web related because I have a 27" desktop screen so, why would I.
Step 2, I download the Ticketmaster app, which I don’t want but figure I have no choice. Still doesn’t work.
Step 3, I’m using Firefox Focus browser because I try to avoid anything Google where possible (tracking spyware). I came to realize I had no choice but to use Chrome (Google).
Step 4, Ticketmaster works with Chrome. Clearly some collusion there. Ticketmaster app works with Chrome as well and I manage to download tickets.
Step 5, Where the f**k are my tickets?
Step 6, Turns out I need to download & install Google Wallet. Another app I don’t want.
I now have tickets.
For those wondering, it appears impossible to move the tickets to anywhere - they must remain in Google Wallet. You can’t print them.
As far as I can tell come concert time, I show up with phone in hand and hope for availability of free wi-fi in order to log into Google to make Wallet available. It’s that or use data I suppose. Tough luck to those that don’t have data on their phones. And yes, the only time I ever log into Google (Google Play) is when I want to update what apps I use. Primarily a mindless game. I have little use for the phone otherwise. I mostly use it for it’s intended purpose (contacts) to stay in touch if I’m overseas or somewhere vacationing.
I find it reprehensible that Ticketmaster wouldn’t make tickets more accessible. I’m sure they will blame the venue. Maybe partially legit, but I don’t buy it. Ticketmaster holds too much sway.
Artists that have some degree of power should step up.
I’ve already removed the Ticketmaster app and Chrome from my phone. Looks like I’ll have to hang on to Google Wallet until concert time. After that it’s history. I have no intention of ever tying my credit info to it.
I’ll never deal with Ticketmaster again. Wonder if the promised support agent will ever reach out to me. I doubt it.
PS/ Now that I’ve gone through this, and to be fair, if I had to do it again things would go more smoothly. I’d know what to expect and what was required. Still; the entire experience was distasteful and took far longer than it should have. One shouldn’t be required to jump through hoops in order simply to secure concert tickets. The process loads your phone with spyware in the form of the Ticketmaster app and well, anything Google related is spyware. I know many don’t seem to consider being tracked & categorized a problem. I do.
For me, there won’t be a next time.
Something else that crossed my mind is with the entire crowd having to access the concert venue by way of smart phone tickets it guarantees a sea of idiots disrupting the concert with phone lights, cameras and just generally waving phones about and in the way of those who actually came for the concert.
