Credit card/debit card surcharging

[vernon]

And while we are at it, booking fees for ticket purchases. Why not just charge £0.50 or £1.00 more for the ticket in the first place? That way you won't piss me off so.

Yes but buy ten ticket in one transaction and you have to pay ten booking fees. How unfair is that?

 

[Norm]

How bizarre to surcharge cards on the net. I suspect they catch many of the unwary that way. If word gets out their business will suffer.

Not only is it legal but the government are active participants. If you want to but your road tax online, you pay £2.50 extra per transaction to use a credit card.

Given that there is no manual processing required, unlike a post office, and that they can, and do, check the validity of all your documents, you'd have thought that the savings they make in people costs would be enough for them to suck up the Visa/MC charges.

 

[Dan B]

Yes but buy ten ticket in one transaction and you have to pay ten booking fees. How unfair is that?

For music tickets, if you are buying from a ticket agent (which, essentially, is anyone other than the venue direct), face price is the price they pay, so wat you're saying here is essentially equivalent to suggesting that if you buy ten items in a shop you should pay retail for one of them and get the other nine at wholesale price.

Except in practice it's usually worse than this because of the "rebate": an additional fee paid by the agent to the promoter on each sold ticket which is passed onto the venue. So, when you buy a £45 face value ticket from an official legitimate outlet such as See or Ticketmaster, they probably paid about £46.50 for it.


[ edit: why isn't ticketmaster caught by the swear filter? ticket*ast** ]

 

[tyred]

The company I work for charges a 2% charge on credit card transactions.

My local newsagents once charged my day 16c to cash a cheque.

 

[Dan B]

Yeah but you can have to pay booking fees for gigs even when buying direct from the venue.

Chances are the venue has outsourced their box office in that case. Or they don't want to lose the value of their rebate on tickets they sell direct. Or they're just in a "everyone else does it so why can't we" mode. Depending on the gig involved it's quite likely that the promoter takes all the cash and then gives them their fee later: it's not as though they set the price and keep the money.

Bottom line is that someone has to be employed to tear the ticket off the strip and take your money. If agents (or venues) weren't allowed to sell at more than face price then either the face price would have to rise, or someone involved in the concert promotion would have to reduce their share of the take. Since most of the people in the music industry have egos almost as large as the rock stars they're promoting, I can't see anyone about to back down here ...

For the record, yes, I agree it's a rubbish system. But it's probably not the agents that are gouging you here, it's the whole system

 

[goo_mason]

Slightly OT but I can't figure out why paying your TV Licence by Quarterly Direct Debit attracts a fee too.

I thought paying by DD was supposed to make things easier & cheaper for them!

 

[gb155]

Not only is it legal but the government are active participants. If you want to but your road tax online, you pay £2.50 extra per transaction to use a credit card.

Given that there is no manual processing required, unlike a post office, and that they can, and do, check the validity of all your documents, you'd have thought that the savings they make in people costs would be enough for them to suck up the Visa/MC charges.

ROAD TAX????????????????

 

[Norm]

Yes.