Why do I despise Ticketmaster? Well, you can read some of that here, and I’ll elaborate a bit below.

Here’s a screenshot of a bill I just almost confirmed.

So, let’s take a look at all those wonderful fees.

First off we have the ticket price: $25 for adults. No problems there.

Then we have a “Total Building Facility Charge” of $2. Uhhh, what? Wikipedia says this is determined by the venue, so I guess I can’t blame Ticketmaster. Too bad.

Then there’s the “Total Convenience Charge” of $8.30. This fee is for the convenience of not having to go over to a Ticketmaster retail location to buy a ticket in person. Apparently Ticketmaster say that this convenience is worth 33.2% of the total ticket price. 33.2%. That’s fucking ridiculous.

Following is a $5.10 “Order Processing Charge,” because we all know how these web servers charge a pretty penny of an hourly rate. Virtually no human effort is required for the processing of an order and the electricity/bandwidth required for the computers to do it is insignificant. This is laughable.

The last one is my personal favorite: a $2.50 “TicketFast Delivery” charge, which is a fee for printing your own tickets as opposed to having them shipped to you. Mind you, some of the shipping options are quite pricey, and rightfully so (UPS Next Day and similar), but choosing to have your tickets mailed to you via standard USPS is free. They charge you $2.50 if you don’t want them to bother with mailing you a ticket. In addition to the free USPS option there’s a retail pickup option for $1. Taking up a Ticketmaster employee’s time at a window somewhere will cost you less than doing all the work yourself.

So the total is $42.90, $17.90 of which is various (read: bullshit) fees. Fuck you, Ticketmaster.

Scam, anyone?

I hereby refuse to pay 42% of the ticket price in fees, because I refuse to be ripped off like a complete idiot. I guess I’m not seeing Pendulum. Shame.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 1:15 pm and is filed under rants.