Hello and welcome to UF tube?
UFC is the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed martial arts fighting franchise that many Australians are really into.
But this is our consumer complaint segment F.U. tube.
And there were plenty of FUs from UFC fans aimed at Ticketek recently, when
interim middleweight champion Robert “The Reaper” Whittaker withdrew on medical grounds
from a UFC title bout in Perth.
As you can imagine, many fans were devastated.
Nooooooooooo!
Thousands of enraged cage fighting fans? That is a tricky PR situation.
But if tipoffs to The Checkout are any indication, Ticketek customer service drives all sorts
of people into a violent rage.
I rang up customer service 8 times ..
The only contact I've found is constantly busy
To be fair, Ticketek says it issues 23 million tickets to more than 20,000 events a year.
And, in the events business, sometimes things outside the control of companies like Ticketek
do happen.
Whhhhhhhhhhhhy?!
So if something does go wrong what’s the best way to contact Ticketek?
And is anger about Ticketek customer service justified?
To get a sense, we ran our own little randomised trial of Ticketek customer service.
Their online reputation is so disastrous that buying tickets to
the Titanic exhibition seemed appropriate.
We bought three Titanic tickets … which, it turned out, was one more than we actually
needed.
C’mon.
It’ll be … fun.
It’s too soon!
Within minutes of the purchase, we tried contacting Ticketek by telephone, on Facebook and Twitter,
at the same time as we asked Ticketek’s PR people some questions… including one
that's even more haunting than the sinking of the Titanic:
Why does Ticketek charge customers for printing tickets at home?
On Facebook, it took Ticketek 40 mins to refuse a refund.
I guess prompt lack of customer service is better than nothing.
Or at least it’s nothing, but quicker.
And let’s be clear “no refunds or exchanges for change of mind” is perfectly legal.
On Twitter, it took 20 minutes for Ticketek to give our refund request another polite
FU.
But it was a very different story when we tried to call Ticketek on … and don’t
bother writing this number down
When we called, the robot lady says: Welcome to Ticketek.
We are experiencing a high call volume at this time.
Then, over about 30 seconds, she tries to shunt you off to:
Ticketek.com.au But stay on the line and eventually …
If you feel you would still like to speak with a consultant
Finally!
Yes please put me through to a human being! please try again later.
Thank you for calling Ticketek.
That happened when we called Ticketek at 11:06am... at midday.
In fact each of the five times we called that day.
And every one of the twelve times we called the next day.
So when Ticketek says "high call volume" I think I know what they mean.
Welcome to Ticketek.
I’ve been trying to get through for two days!!!!
Here’s what happened when we called Ticketek at 2:15am.
Thank you for taking the time to hold.
We are experiencing a wait time of greater than one hour.
We will be ending your call at this time.
I’ve actually started to wonder if Ticketek’s
call centre reps are really that dedicated, or much of a team.
And in my more cynical moments, I’ve even wondered if Ticketek’s recorded messages
might be misleading or deceptive.
We can definitely say their PR got back to us quicker that we could get
through to Ticketek by phone.
They didn’t actually answer most of our questions
But they did say Ticketek acts as the agent of ... venues and
promoters.
Ticketek does not ... decide if ... refunds are approved.
And Ticketek is an agent.
So the call on refunds for things like a change to a UFC title fight may not be theirs.
The voluntary Live Performance Australia Ticketing Code of Practice says refunds aren’t required
for a change in support acts or festival line-ups.
Which suggests there should be a refund if the headliner changes.
By the way, UFC did offer refunds after the grim Reaper news.
But, Ticketek isn’t just an agent.
They provide ticketing services, and the Consumer Law guarantees apply to those services.
So Ticketek is responsible for ticketing failures: not customer errors, but errors in their system.
And we think statements like this ...or this … if they don’t properly acknowledge your
consumer law rights can be misleading.
By the way, while we were trying to call Ticketek, they actually called us six hours after the
Tweet offering to refund 1 ticket cos “it was
a same-day” request.
So when it comes to Ticketek, social media looks like the best way to get in touch.
And for major failures of consumer guarantees, a refund is not their call.
It’s yours.
But I wouldn’t bother calling about it.
Plus, you can get a refund on a Titanic ticket … now that was a major failure.
Finally tonight it’s Warren.
When shopping in Fitzroy at Ishka, seller of an eclectic range of world crafts,
Warren was expecting a discount on his purchase of a
classic “world craft” from “the foothills of the Himalayan mountains” the “USB Salt
Lamp”.
Even though Ishka’s , a not-not-for-profit organisation, Warren
expected them to give him the... 50% off absolutely everything!
promised on the sign in their window.
But when he went to pay, Ishka said Warren could only get the discount if he signed up
to their Karma Club … bringing a world of rewards
to you.
Though looking at the terms of Karma Club membership, it’s more like
a world of rewards in the absolute discretion of Ishka
Maybe the rewards are guaranteed in another life?
But in this life, Warren wasn’t happy.
Your 3 metre high sign ... says NO EXCEPTIONS.
This is pure data trawling Woah ... as you can tell, Warren felt misled
by Ishka’s sign.
But a three metre high sign Warren?
Really.
We checked out Ishka signage using Google Earth and
yep, that’s a big sign.
And it does say 50% off storewide!
For what it’s worth, Ishka says their staff are told to give the discount to customers who don't want to join the Karma Club
Warren says he wasn’t given that option.
At the same time, it’s not illegal to make discounts conditional in some way.
Most discounts are.
But it is against the Consumer Law to be misleading about prices.
And businesses can’t just rely on fine print. Ishka says the Karma Club condition is displayed
“prominently” in store.
Warren disagrees.
Which argument’s more convincing?
Well, here’s our assessment… to scale.
In the end, for Warren, the lure of 50% off his rock salt USB lamp was too great.
He signed up, though he’s not certain his enrolment form for the Karma Club was completely
accurate.
Which is a bit cheeky.
So overall it’s a bit hard to say how the Consumer Law karma will pan out in this case.
Until next life, good night.