TicketLiquidator
Vernon,#2UPDATE Employee
Tue, March 15, 2011
I am an employee of TL responding to the comments left by the above customer in regards to his ticket purchase through our site.
Briefly, I should mention that we at TL are a nationwide network through which trusted individuals and registered companies resell tickets to events. We don't directly own, price, nor ship any of the tickets listed for resale on our website, but instead provide a secure forum (like EBay) through which individuals can buy and sell event tickets.
In this case, the customer concerned placed an order through us and then learned the next day that the order had been rejected by the ticket seller (National Event Company). The concerns expressed by the customer appear to revolve around the fact that he thought his purchase was confirmed when he hit the "purchase" button on our site.
To explain further, TicketLiquidator (and our competitors', too) have a small window during which ticket sellers can choose to accept or reject any orders placed for their tickets. The reason for this leeway is because ticket sellers often sell tickets (albeit for higher prices) on other websites, too. It's therefore possible that a seller may sell a given group of tickets before being able to remove it from the TL website. Sellers then try to access more tickets for the customer concerned or, failing that, must reject the order.
Having said that, it's certainly true that we at TL do not encourage rejected orders and that very, very few orders are ever rejected. We also have a rating system in place that ranks ticket sellers and dictates their ability to utilize our ticket exchange. We use this rating system to penalize sellers for every order they reject (order rejection takes up a large chunk of the rating scale). The seller who couldn't supply the above customer's order was thus penalized for rejecting it and didn't have an incentive not to fulfill the purchase concerned. (It's additionally true that, team-changing aside, it's always risky for a seller to try and resell event tickets, because there's no guarantee there'll be able to offload the inventory in a crowded, competitive marketplace -- so, if an order is placed, sellers are glad to fill it and secure their profit.)
Additionally, I should also point out that, once a seller accepts an order, they are pledged to provide it, and, if they don't or can't, the customer is due a 125% refund (on top of numerous other penalties imposed upon the seller).
In Gary's situation, the order he placed doesn't appear to have been accepted by the seller, but instead rejected prior to acceptance. The receipt Gary refers to is actually an email sent automatically by TL after an order is placed to confirm the customer's information and to inform customers that their information has been sent to the seller. Ticket sellers actually send separate emails when they accept ticket orders. It's also true that most sellers charge customers immediately when an order is placed. This is because ticketing prices are dynamic (always rising and falling) and so an immediate charge de facto reserves a customer's place in line for tickets at a set price (since multiple orders may come in at once for popular games). This charge is refunded by the seller when an order is rejected.
Furthermore, I should mention that we explain our order acceptance policies throughout the TL website, including in the FAQ section and also above every ticket listing (all 62,400+ of them) in the "Lowdown," where we state that "Orders are not guaranteed until accepted by the seller," and provide a further explanation in a pop-up window.
On the service issue, I certainly want to extend our apologies if the customer thought he was treated rudely by any personnel. We would happy if he would email us at [email protected] with "RIPOFF REPORT" in the subject line and his 7-digit Order ID number so that we could investigate his order issue.
Lastly, I want to assure the customer that any tickets sold through TL are being sold in strict accordance with state and local laws (otherwise we wouldn't let sellers re-sell those tickets).
I should point out, too, that it is our policy to offer customers whose order was rejected a discount on any new purchase to help them access tickets to the event concerned.
We would be more than happy to supply the customer above with a discount on any future order, as well, and would appreciate him contacting us with any further concerns!
Please do email [email protected], as described, and we'll make sure the matter goes to a manager.