StubHub Can Kiss My...

business goodbye. Not that they care. I mean, I'm one person. But let me warn you: If you try to sell event tickets with them, you may get screwed. Consider going elsewhere.

Normally, I'm not a ticket seller. I don't buy tickets just to resell...I buy if I want to go. As many of you know from an earlier blog, I snagged George Michael tix back in May. I was soooo happy...the guy hasn't been to the US in seventeen years, and I'm a die-hard fan. (Laugh all you want. I do not care.)

But then I found out the Red Sox were playing the Yankees at the EXACT same time, and my husband already bought us tickets. Luckily, the Sox changed the game time to 1:05 pm, so I thought I was safe...until last week, when they changed game time right back to 8:05 pm, exactly the same time George hits the stage. On top of that, the friend who'd planned to go with me couldn't make it, and neither could my backup George Michael fan. Talk about heartbreaking! But since I obviously can't be in two places at once, and I had someone to go with me to baseball, but not to see George, off to StubHub I went, boo-hooing all the way.

I listed the tickets, but they were only up for two days before the "last minute" deadline crept up, which means you have to re-list using StubHub's Last Minute Services, which the site says is "quick and easy!" Well, here's the dirty truth about their Last Minute Services: It's not even StubHub who runs it. You sign up, tell them where your tix are, and they say they'll get back to you within 48 hours to give you a code to re-list the tickets. (And many places on the site even say within 24 hours. But we'll go with the 48, just to give them the benefit of the doubt.) Did I get contacted in those 48 hours? Nope. And repeated calls to customer service after the 48 hours were up didn't help. The first guy said he saw my request in the system, said I should've already been called or e-mailed, and promised to fix it "right away." No e-mail or call back. The next day I called again. A woman in customer service said, "My supervisor's right here...we'll get this fixed and call you back in 30 - 40 minutes. I'm so sorry this is happening!" Three hours later...nothing. So I call again, and the guy I get in customer service says, "Oh, Last Minute Services doesn't have to call you back. It's optional."

HUH? What happened to "quick and easy" or "24 hours" or even "48 hours"?

Nowhere on the site does it say that. And in the meantime, you check off a box that says you will not sell the tix elsewhere. In other words: you're giving them the right to sell your tickets...but they may or may not even let you LIST them. And you can't go elsewhere. Like to (hint, hint) Ace Tickets. Or, say, turn them over to TicketMaster for a possible re-sale to someone who really wants to see George Michael.

So finally, LAST NIGHT, less than 24 hours before the concert, I get an e-mail with the address to which I must send the tickets so they can be listed for sale. I send the PDF *exactly* as requested within two minutes of receiving the e-mail. An hour later, they send back an e-mail saying it's not a PDF. So I re-send, IMMEDIATELY, and make it clear that it's a PDF of the tickets. No response. No password or code or whatever to allow me to list them for sale now that they have the PDF. And when I called back this morning, they said, "We can't help you."

So I have NO tickets. NO listing. NO money. NO one to contact.

StubHub, you can kiss my...well, you know. (And if whoever at StubHub or Last Minute Services got my PDF file sits in my seats, or gives 'em to their buddies, StubHub, you are SO gonna hear it.)

George, I hope it's a WONDERFUL concert. I'd never sell your tix if I could make it. And I'll never, ever deal with StubHub again.