When BTS cancels Barbara Evans’ show, Ticketmaster offers her a refund. There’s just one problem: She canceled the credit card she used to pay for the tickets. Will she ever see the money again?
Question
In early 2020, I bought tickets to the BTS Map of the Soul Tour for June. I used my Chase Visa to make the purchase. After the pandemic started, I canceled this Chase travel card.
This August, Ticketmaster emailed to say the concert scheduled for 14 months ago had officially been canceled and to expect refunds to the card used to purchase within 30 days. Knowing a refund to my card would not be possible, I contacted Chase bank to confirm they didn’t receive a refund for me.
I’ve reached out to Ticketmaster by email, phone, and Twitter fan support and still have no refund. I get auto responses and referrals back to canned information on refunds that don’t apply to me.
Twitter fan support did ask for my address in September, but I still have no refund and they will not respond to any additional questions from me. I would like a check mailed to me or proof of where they believe I was refunded. — Barbara Evans, Lexington, Ky.
Answer
This is a refund case with an interesting twist. I think you would have received your ticket refund by now if you hadn’t canceled your Chase Visa.
My advocacy team sees problems like this from time to time. It’s usually a complicated back-office IT issue or a rigid corporate policy that insists all refunds must be made to the original form of payment (and no exceptions!). But of course, there have to be exceptions, because sometimes customers’ circumstances change, as yours did. (Related: Ticketmaster sent my refund to a closed credit card account! Now what?)
(By the way, I’m not going to make fun of you for buying tickets to a BTS concert. My teenagers are horrified when I open my BTS playlist in the car. What’s wrong with them?)
Ticketmaster should have offered you some support on this instead of sending you form responses or having bots answer you on Twitter. I loathe the Twitterbots that pretend to be humans and also pretend to care about your case. They are worse than the script-reading, outsourced phone center support workers. At least those phone representatives were human and can recognize when a case fell outside the normal bounds of the support system. Bots can’t do that. (Here’s the complete guide to chargebacks and winning a credit card dispute.)
I list the names, numbers and email addresses of the Chase executives on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.
Will she get a refund from Ticketmaster?
I’m impressed with the way you kept track of all the paperwork. It’s maddening to read your paper trail. Ticketmaster repeatedly promised you a refund and then, after it assured you that the money was with your credit card, it deleted your tickets from its app, effectively disallowing you from contacting it further about your case. (Related: Can I get a refund from Ticketmaster for this Alan Parsons concert?)
I reached out to Ticketmaster on your behalf. A representative contacted you promptly and promised to send you a check in six to eight weeks. And this time, it did. (Related: I couldn’t see P!nk because of a foul-ball net. Can I get a refund from Ticketmaster?)
