Are you sitting comfortably? No? Ok I'll wait until you sort yourself out. Back? Ready? Here we go: Recently, I arranged for a special long weekend down in London for MrsGOO's 40th birthday. As part of the suprise, I wanted to take her to the opera - we'd been before for her 30th whilst we where in Prague, and she loved it. So I decide to take her to the Royal Opera House to see Verdi's version of Othello. The Opera had a perfomance on the 12th July - Pauline's birthday - but unfortunatly at the time I was sorting out all the bookings for the weekend's activities they had sold out. So, I did the worst thing anyone can do in these situations. I went to an online ticket bureau. I found World Ticket Shop online via google. The site looks slick and profesional, and they mention insurance against missing tickets / cancelled shows, and UPS Courier delivery of any tickets you purchased. They had two tickets for the performance - up in the Gods, and at ~80% markup on the face value of the best seats up in the top part of the Opera House (the ampitheatre) - but as it was for a special day, I pulled the trigger and bought them. I got the confirmation email, and it stated on it that I'd recieve the tickets via UPS, on Monday 9th July. Great. Job done, I thought - lets get everything else sorted. I expected a UPS shipping number to be emailed me during the weekend. Nothing came. Monday came and went, no tickets, and no missed delivery slip. I gave them the benifit of the doubt, and waited another day. Nothing arrived on the Tuesday, so I tried to ring WTS. This was at 17:05 - but according to the nice lady with the Dutch accent (they're based in Holland) told me they're only open from 11 to 5 GMT. So I took her advice and sent an email in asking where my tickets where. I got an email back the following morning, saying that they'd get the seller to contact me direct, as WTS is only a brokerage. So I wait for contact from him, bearing in mind that this is the day before the performance. Nothing happens all morning. So I ring WTS again at lunchtime, and they say they'll contact the seller again. I hear nothing for the rest of the day. I start to panic at this point, thinking that the whole weekend is going to get ruined. So I do another search for tickets. And, as luck would have it, the ROH had had two returned for the Stalls Circle (which are much better tickets) - so I purchase those to save my suprise to MrsGoo. I finally get a text message at 21:30 from the seller requesting I meet him in London prior to the perfomance to collect the tickets. I declined this, and asked him why he hadn't sent them as per the delivery details on the confirmation. This is where I was lost for words for a while - he basically admitted to not even having the tickets. He was going to pick them up on the morning of the performance. He was buying standby tickets, which are at the very back of the gods, require supplimentry oxygen and cost about £30-40 each - and was attempting to sell them as if he'd got reletively decent ones at the front of the ampitheatre on hand. I texted him back asking why I was being charged for delivery and insurance and the like if I had to pick them up. He said it was a standard charge added by the system. And then asked if he could deliver them to our hotel instead. I politely told him to stuff it, as he and WTS had basically falsely advertised something for sale that they didn't even have. This text exhange, along with emails from WTS continued all Thursday as well, as we travelled down to London. They kept telling me that I had to take the tickets, and if I didn't take them I'd forfit the money I paid. I told them no, I wouldn't as I'd start a PayPal claim against them. They then tried a different track by asking if I'd rather have tickets for the perfomance the follwing week. Again I declined - the whole point of attending this performance was that it coincided with Pauline's birthday. They really didn't seem to grasp this. At this point, I just got fed up with them (especially as they claimed I wasn't co-operating by collecting the tickets from the scammer who was selling them), told the firmly (but politely) that I would not be dealing or answering with any more of their emails or texts, and that the matter was in the hands of PayPal. Thankfully, after about two weeks of investigating, PayPal has found in my favour, and I've got the first (major) part of the cash back. I'm still waiting on the other transaction... The total cost of the tickets was split into two transactions for some reason - I guess WTS get their cut and fees from the one I'm still waiting on, whilst the bulk of it was for the tickets. Anyway, the moral of this story is: DONT USE ONLINE TICKET AGENCIES! REGARDLESS OF HOW LEGIT THEY LOOK - ALWAYS BOOK WITH THE ORGANISER
I'm glad you sorted it out GOO and it didn't interrupt your carefully laid plans. Shaken and not stirred as it were.
Abshulutly, Mish Mhoneyphenny. Despite all the trauma, It's a great laugh going to the Opera all togged up, you pretending to James Bond & your other half being the sexy russian assassin. Although strangely, MrsGoo doesn't like being called Doris. You may not understand it all (it's all sung in Italian), It's bizarre (only in Opera can a missing hanky be evidence of infidelity and grounds for murdering your wife) - but my god, the spectacle of it all is truly breathtaking.
"Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,' said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. 'There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what I'm doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely." -- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)
And that's so right. Otello, by the way, is most definately Heavy Opera. The only real light hearted moments consist of Iago (the villain) doing something deliciously evil and doing the operatic equivilant of twirling his mustache and going 'muwahahaha'
This is scary. It's just so good that you were able to get your payment back. I've also heard a lot of horror stories about third-party online purchases and majority of them weren't able to get their money back. It's still best to transact with the organizers rather than online in this matter.
Just to close this off, I've now got all my money back via PayPal. Hurrah! Mind you, I'm not sure what PayPal is playing at though... The final £70 odd quid that was owed to me has been refunded and reversed - so I've been credited twice. I expect they'll notice their mistake at some point. Unless it's a 'sorry for you inconvinience' payment. I can hope, can't I?
I ended up being £230 in profit over a refund once. Left it in my account for 2 years then decided they really didn't want it after all...
Good thing you atleast paid with PayPal, that way you are safer as compared to most other kinds of transaction!
Glad you saw off the scammers there. Certainly the RoH is worth a trip now and again last time I was there it was snowing and the view out form the terrace was great I think it was the ballet, probably Swan Lake, but now I think about it definitely at least 12 years ago Now that I'm out of London the next trip is likely to be the Nutcracker once I think our eldest cash sit through it.
I would so love to get one of these guys in my hands. Just five minutes with them. Hate scum like this.
I've been keeping an eye on review centre, and it appears the scamming so and so's are doing the same to people wanting to get Olympic tickets. They're online ticket touts - nothing more, nothing less. Well, worse than touts really - at least with a tout you can see the tickets you're getting scalped for. These jokers take your cash and then leave you dangling.
