The Ticket Office are a Joke

[dansufc]

So i bought two tickets for PNE second leg, not in my season ticket seat as i wanted to sit next to Mel so i waited until they went on general sale and got two together.

All well and good, until about 5 minutes before kick off, these two men came up to us and say your in our seats, i said no, we've bought these and showed them our tickets, they showed us their season tickets and a steward came and told us to sit a few seats along, so we sat there, for about 2 minutes when another two people come along and tell us that we're in there seat, so we went back to the steward, who moved us further along, about 5 minutes later the same thing happens, so we go back to the steward.

The steward then finds an assistant supervisor, he takes down where our seats to prove hes done some work or something, anyway, he says the ticket office have double sold some ST tickets and moves us to block A on the kop when our original seats where in block D we had to sit in seats 80 seats away from our original seats. With may i add a restricted view and i don't mean a view where the post is covering a section of the pitch, it was actually covering up a section of the net.

Now i have a couple of theories.
No. 1: The lads who came along actually didn't buy their season ticket seats, they bought somewhere else on the kop and thought that they could get away with showing their season card so they get there ST seats, which obviously worked.

No. 2: Genuine mistake by the ticket office and a fault in the system that has meant double sales where allowed to happen

No. 3: The ticket office sold the seats to the ST holders after i had purchased them to keep the ST holders happy cause they couldn't get there seat.

I saw on the computer screen that the seats i bought were green (unsold) so they hadn't bought them before me, unless a computer cock up.

Needless to say i am very unhappy with this and i am going to complain, just wondering which is the best way? In person at the ticket office or sending a letter?

 

[Foxy]

From the info you've posted, sounds more like the ST holders didn't purchase their own seats at all.

Not really the ticket offices fault if this was the case.

 

[dansufc]

From the info you've posted, sounds more like the ST holders didn't purchase their own seats at all.

Not really the ticket offices fault if this was the case.

This is all well and good, but surely they should have a system in place to stop this happening, therefore it is there fault, maybe something like everyone gets a ticket receipt even if its there ST place and they need to take that to the match, if they don't have it then they have no right to the place

 

[Foxy]

This is all well and good, but surely they should have a system in place to stop this happening, therefore it is there fault, maybe something like everyone gets a ticket receipt even if its there ST place and they need to take that to the match, if they don't have it then they have no right to the place

How exactly can the ticket office stop people from saying they have bought the seat?

Everyone does get a receipt for their purchase and they also get their membership card or ticket validated.

In this situation its the stewards job to ensure that you all had paid for what you'd said you'd paid for. I'd have thought the magic card machines that some stewards have would be able to tell you this information quickly.

If the seats were available and you saw they were available, it sounds far more likely that the season ticket holders were trying it on OR didn't understand the purchasing/rules of additional home fixtures. The issue is then therefore the stewards finding out whether what they were saying was true (and there had been some form of unlikely system problem) or not.

The problem exists if they truly had double sold the tickets, but the whole system should ensure that this doesn't happen... It just sounds far more likely from what you've said that the season ticket holders had purchased seats elsewhere.

 

[dansufc]

How exactly can the ticket office stop people from saying they have bought the seat?

Everyone does get a receipt for their purchase and they also get their membership card or ticket validated.

In this situation its the stewards job to ensure that you all had paid for what you'd said you'd paid for. I'd have thought the magic card machines that some stewards have would be able to tell you this information quickly.

If the seats were available and you saw they were available, it sounds far more likely that the season ticket holders were trying it on OR didn't understand the purchasing/rules of additional home fixtures. The issue is then therefore the stewards finding out whether what they were saying was true (and there had been some form of unlikely system problem) or not.

Bring in the rule that you have to take the receipt to the match as proof of purchase otherwise if questioned and you cant provide the receipt then you don't get the seat, obviously this would be down to the stewards to enforce, but with the ticket office actually saying it/having it on the ticket.

This obviously leaves me with the problem of who to complain to, because ultimately i had to sit in a seat that was restricted view, and are sold at a discounted price.

 

[Foxy]

Bring in the rule that you have to take the receipt to the match as proof of purchase otherwise if questioned and you cant provide the receipt then you don't get the seat, obviously this would be down to the stewards to enforce, but with the ticket office actually saying it/having it on the ticket.

So why bother with a card system at all? we'd might as well go back to paper tickets instead in that case

They'd surely just have to scan the season cards with a mobile machine, gotta be just as quick as messing with receipts I'd have thought?

This obviously leaves me with the problem of who to complain to, because ultimately i had to sit in a seat that was restricted view, and are sold at a discounted price.

Well the problem is, if you contact the ticket office, you've picked the worse possible time for it to happen, when they've got nearly 40k tickets to shift!

 

[dansufc]

So why bother with a card system at all? we'd might as well go back to paper tickets instead in that case

They'd surely just have to scan the season cards with a mobile machine, gotta be just as quick as messing with receipts I'd have thought?



Well the problem is, if you contact the ticket office, you've picked the worse possible time for it to happen, when they've got nearly 40k tickets to shift!

Indeed the the mobile machine is a better idea, but is there currently enough machines to cover all of the stands? inside as well as outside the stadium

I really have :lol:, although i suspect that all the Wembley tickets will have sold out by Sunday/Monday

 

[Deleted member 1486]

I've had that happen to me before, very very frustrating to be told to move to a spare seat then 2 minutes later someone else turns up and turfs you out.

Something always goes wrong when we're not in our usual seats. Like Wolves, we moved into the Bramall Lane upper and got told to use our normal season cards, I scanned the nipper in and he went through the turnstile, then when I went to go through the turnstile it rejected my card. So he was trapped inside behind the turnstile while I was stuck outside, we only had to wait a couple of minutes while a steward found someone with a card reader but it was a bit awkward, especially as the turnstile was still being used so we couldn't see each other.

Had a bit of a ticketing drama last night as well actually, again due to them transferring seats on the season card. The girl in the ticket office didn't write the row down on the slip she gave us (and I didn't check until we got inside the stadium, partly my fault I accept). Anyway, lesson learned, always ask for a printed ticket!

 

[shorehamYY168]

been in the same boat myself this season, i had a ticket loaded onto my member card and given a piece of paper telling me were i was sat.i then got into the ground and couldn't find my seat.bemused i went to the steward only to be told the seat didn't even exist!

 

[Linz]

The thing is, it's a user error... not a ticket office error.

They haven't done anything wrong, the people with the tickets have.

 

[dansufc]

The thing is, it's a user error... not a ticket office error.

They haven't done anything wrong, the people with the tickets have.

Which then became a steward error when the steward was asked to sort it out and he didn't. I wasn't gonna put up a fight as i didn't want to risk being kicked out, some of them are jobs worth.

 

[happyhippy]

Which then became a steward error when the steward was asked to sort it out and he didn't. I wasn't gonna put up a fight as i didn't want to risk being kicked out, some of them are jobs worth.

So it's not the ticket office's fault then, is it? Don't get me wrong, I'd have been incredibly hacked off as well, but without one of those little reader thingummyjigs about (I've only ever seen one once), what else could be done?

If you really want to complain, then ask why the stewarding supervisor didn't have/use/call for a reader. Do we have reduced prices on 'restricted view' tickets these days anyway? We didn't when sufclucy and I ended up with restricted views (almost behind one of the poles on the Kop) against Forest in the playoffs in 2003. For that matter, pretty much everywhere on the Kop has a restricted view because of those blasted things. I can't wait for the cantilever stand.

 

[Berks_Blade]

Bring in the rule that you have to take the receipt to the match as proof of purchase otherwise if questioned and you cant provide the receipt then you don't get the seat, obviously this would be down to the stewards to enforce, but with the ticket office actually saying it/having it on the ticket.

This obviously leaves me with the problem of who to complain to, because ultimately i had to sit in a seat that was restricted view, and are sold at a discounted price.

But you can't insist on receipts - many of us can't go to the ground to buy tickets, but buy online or over the phone. They don't send paperwork out for a phone sale (would just create extra work and expense so why should they?), just validate the season card.

 

[dansufc]

So it's not the ticket office's fault then, is it? Don't get me wrong, I'd have been incredibly hacked off as well, but without one of those little reader thingummyjigs about (I've only ever seen one once), what else could be done?

If you really want to complain, then ask why the stewarding supervisor didn't have/use/call for a reader. Do we have reduced prices on 'restricted view' tickets these days anyway? We didn't when sufclucy and I ended up with restricted views (almost behind one of the poles on the Kop) against Forest in the playoffs in 2003. For that matter, pretty much everywhere on the Kop has a restricted view because of those blasted things. I can't wait for the cantilever stand.

When we was talking to the steward he did say that it had happened to alot of people and that they had double sold tickets, whether he was making this up or not to shift the blame on to the ticket office is another thing.

A restricted view is where the pole is in your view of either net not just the pitch, most of the seats on the kop have a pole in the view of the pitch but less have a pole in view of the nets.

 

[Samantha]

By the sounds of it Dan, it wouldn't do you any harm to contact ticket office (under circumstances I think by e-mail would be better as they're gonna be pretty snowed under). Maybe rather than it coming across as a complaint, make them aware of what's happened and say you don't want it to happen again, tell them where your seats were (what you had bought) and they should be able to tell you if it was their mistake, or a user error.

I can see why you're frustrated but without asking the ticket office, you've no way of knowing what's happened. If you don't get a reply sharpish though - you know why!!

 

[happyhippy]

When we was talking to the steward he did say that it had happened to alot of people and that they had double sold tickets, whether he was making this up or not to shift the blame on to the ticket office is another thing.

A restricted view is where the pole is in your view of either net not just the pitch, most of the seats on the kop have a pole in the view of the pitch but less have a pole in view of the nets.

Maybe he was. Like I said, I wasn't having a go, just looking straight at what you'd said. On the restricted view thing, my ticket at Hellsbore a few years ago said 'restricted view', and the bit which was obscured was by the corner flag. And it wasn't any cheaper.

Bastards

 

[keenzy]

Stewards are shyte anyway.
Please keep off the pitch announced.... stewards just stood there letting them on!

 

[happyhippy]

Stewards are shyte anyway.
Please keep off the pitch announced.... stewards just stood there letting them on!

I remember that being announced at Leicester, Darlington, Coventry, Arsenal ...... oh and so many more!

Not that it's a good thing to when with children! Stay within the rules!