Rant Pt.2

It all started this morning when I got a reply to my email sent to Ticketmaster yesterday. Here's the story so far..

July-Sept Booked tickets online. When booking, you can ONLY pick the delivery by Royal Mail option (for an extra £5 thank you very much). Tickets will be sent to card'sbillingg address.

Sept - Moved from Willesden Green to Hammersmith

Sept 7 - Sent email through Ticketmaster website (as they encourage emails rather than phone calls), advising I had changed address and ALL my current bookings would need to be updated. Changed the billing address on all my cards.

Sept 7 - Got a reply saying that one booking had been changed and that I'd need to send back the booking references for all others to be changed. I replied to the return address and thought nothing more.

Oct 2 - Afterreceivingg a pile of mail from Willesden Green (randomly, as Cazza happened to be up there) including a 'We've missed you' card from Royal Mail, I had to trek out to Harlesden (after they couldn't tell me what was waiting and who it was from over the phone). Lo and behold... it was my Raconteur tickets (for the concert on the 19/10). The tickets had been there for 3 weeks...

Oct 4 - I emailed Ticketmaster "customer service" (HAHAHAHAHA), asking why the address hadn't been changed and to see if someone could check that the rest of the bookings had been updated (seeing as though quite a few were before the end of the year).

November 13 - One week until flying to Glasgow to see Tool and no sign of tickets. A friend hadreceivedd his Wembley ones and I had not heard a peep. Ticketmaster strike again. Once again, I send an email to "customer service" asking where my tickets were and that they'd better be going to Hammersmith.

November 14 - Ireceivee a reply saying 'Your Glasgow tickets are currently being dispatched to WILLESDEN GREEN. Your Wembley tickets are going to your new address'. Now. How can any sane person look at what they just typed - especially in response to my email - and not question the fact that one set of tickets was going to my OLD address and the other ones to my new address.

I promptly tried calling. 4 different numbers. 4 automated services. 30 minutes later I finally got to speak to someone. After ascertaining that it was 'my fault' that I hadn't updated my address (Why, I thought I was sending that initial email to Santa, so he knew where to find me on Dec 24) it was too late to get the Glasgow tickets sent elsewhere as Royal Mail had them. Oh and - she just had to point out - anyone at that address could sign for them, without ID. 'So,' I put it to her 'Although I'm telling you that I don't live there and don't know who lives there now, DESPITE telling you 2 months ago I had moved, my tickets will still be delivered to someone who, regardless of whether they know me or not, can sign for them??'. 'Yes', apparently. Also, APPARENTLY, you can't change your address online. 'So', I asked, 'why did the first person who replied saying 'I've changed your address, please send me the other reference numbers', not tell me that in fact, they couldn't change my address online. Conflicting stories much? We then spent 25 minutes changing the addresses on 6 other orders I had waiting...

She said she'd call me back after hunting down a tracking number from Royal Mail. After 4 hours I was calling them back as I had not heard back. This time Glen was on hand to see if he could unravel this seemingly difficult to understand issue. Again, it was explained to me it was too late to get the tickets back from Royal Mail. 'That's fine', I explained to him, 'I'll deal with that issue later. Right now, I want to speak to someone about why my original request was never dealt with - that is, getting my address changed so THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN. I also want to know why the lady from this morning never got back to me'. He seemed perplexed and flustered... only adding to my rising urge to kill. He, again, took my number promising to get a tracking number for me (the least of my worries) and I took his name.

He called me back, unable to track down a number yet saying he'd have to call tomorrow. When I asked to speak to someone above him he again said there was nothing they could do about the tickets being delivered to Willesden. I AGAIN explained... this was NOT my problem. I want to know why my original request was never dealt with.

After much to-ing and fro-ing he got back to me saying he had followed up my original emails and found that they neverreceivedd my reply listing all dates, reference numbers and card numbers. How convenient.

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* "Delivering customer service begins with understanding what customers want". This is not an isolated case. I think the whole of the UK "customer service sector" needs to do a unit of Business Studies at TAFE. That'll fucking teach them