So Dream Theater is coming to town in a month or so. Being a fairly big fan of DT I went to buy tickets.
From Ticketmaster. Online. Bad idea.
I entered my CC data and order the tickets. The page comes back and said that my CCV number was incorrect. I reenter the data and get the same thing. I tried one last time and got the same error.
So I called my CC company and they confirm my CCV number. The person at the CC company confirmed the CC number and the CCV. Then the lady mentions that I have been charged THREE times by Ticketmaster. I specifically asked the person at my bank if the they were just auths or actual charges and she said they were charges. And yet the web page stated that my CCV was incorrect.
So I call Ticketmaster. I explain that I went to the website and got the error that my CCV was incorrect yet my card was charged 3 times. The person I spoke with had not a clue. She said that it was impossible, it couldn’t happen. So I ask to speak to her boss. I get another woman on the phone who would barely let me speak. When I did manage to shut her up long enough to tell her that my CC had been charged 3 times the woman told me that I don’t know how online credit card systems work. She said that they had just been authed.
A little background: As part of my daily job I install and repair credit card interfaces. I talk to credit card companies all the time to work out why a particular properties credit card system isn’t working. I also support our web reservation software that deals with, get this, online credit card payments. Hell, I have Shift 4s phone number memorized because I speak with them so often.
By now I was fairly pissed. I asked to speak with that womans supervisor. She said her supervisor was in a meeting but that they would call back. So I gave them my number and here I am 12 hours later without a call.
I called my bank and had them remove all the charges. Now I have to get up and go to the venue to get the tickets (minor pain in the ass) and will never use Ticketmaster online again (big pain in the ass as almost everyone out here uses Ticketmaster).
Background: I work for a company that makes a Retail software package and multiple credit card interfaces that at times give us some trouble.
Couple niggles:
A- It’s CVV2, AKA(albeit incorrectly) CID, not CCV.
B- A Bank can’t hardly tell the difference between an auth and an actual charge IME.
At times, a poorly designed web interface for credit will return CVV2 DECLINE when it’s actually AVS DECLINE. One weekend I typed my address in wrong at 2 separate places online and received E-mail stating that both were declined for CVV2 failure. I later figured out my screwup and fixed it, but it made an impression on me about certain developers and their crappy credit interfaces.
We’ve had many problems in the past at work where some monkey at a bank says to an angry customer who decided to swipe his card 18 fucking times in frustration(even though only a single transaction got Auth), that it wasn’t just authorization transactions but actual money leaving his account. 8 times out of 10, they’re wrong.
That having been said, Ticketmaster are a bunch of crooked assclowns, and I wouldn’t doubt it if they actually charged you 3 times.
Ticketmaster(bator) is pure evil. I’m fortunate to have never tried using their service (or being forced to use it since it seems there are no alternatives for some people). There were plenty of complaints about them in this recent thread.
More importantly, did they get your e-mail address? Cause they’ll want to let you know if a band you might like is coming to town. That is, if any fucking band is coming to town.
Dream Theater is unbelievable in concert! Course, that was when they were still good and Images and Words was out. Now that the band lineup has changed, it might be different.
(waiting very impatiently for Dream Theater to come back around here)
Can’t see how any harm can come from doing a few mock-ups and posting them up somewhere. In my experience if anyone can take a joke it’s fundamentalist Muslims.
Saw a female middle Eastern comic on TV in the UK awhile ago. Came onstage in her burkha, pauses and then asks the audience.
I haven’t gotten the tickets yet. I am going to do that tomorrow hopefully. It requires a trip to the strip (I’m in Vegas) and I avoid the strip if at all possible. I am looking forward to this show, I don’t go to many out here, the last one I went to was Rob Thomas and a friend took me to that show (I was suprised, he kicked ass). I love DTs new CD. I’ll write up a review and stick it in CS after the show.
GaWd The developers try and kill us support techs*. The CVV2 field in the DB is called CCV. Why? Beats the hell out of me. So I tend to call it the CCV number as I am always in the DB fixing stuff. I should know better but I was tired and pissed when I wrote the OP.
Slee
*There are multiple places where fields names ain’t quite right. There are also places where fields are jammed into a DB that dosen’t quite make sense because they needed a place to put the info, but overall the software rocks.
As much as I absolutely loathe dealing with Ticketmaster, I had to bite the bullet to pick up tickets for the Dream Theater show up here in CT, myself. Fortunately, I had no issues with the order itself and everything went smoothly, albeit slowly.
I decided to go with the ticketFast option, having the tickets emailed to me so they can be printed and taken to the venue. I’ve never used ticketFast before, so I hope the system isn’t screwed up in typical Ticketmaster fashion and everything goes well.
You would think an online ticketing system like that with so little overhead would be inexpensive for TM and the service fees would be a bit less steep. Well, of course not. The only thing you really save is the overinflated shipping charges TM places on the tickets themselves. The service fees and “convenience charge” still apply.
Oh well. At least the show will be worth it. Saw DT up here a couple of years ago with Fates Warning and Queensryche and it was a great show. This show is the 20th anniversary tour. Two sets, no opener. Makes the pain of dealing with that den of thieves a bit less severe.
