Ticketmaster Customers Are Livid After Company No Longer Offers Refunds on Postponed Shows

With more than 20,000 major concerts and events canceled nationwide amid the coronavirus pandemic, Ticketmaster has found itself in hot water after changing the language in its refund policy to exclude postponed and rescheduled events. With unemployment estimated to hit 14.7 percent amid the health crisis, many customers expected their refund money to help tide them over until non-essential businesses are permitted to reopen.

Last week, however, The New York Times reported that Ticketmaster changed the language on its website to make its refund policy more stringent. A few weeks ago, the site said ticket buyers could get a refund if a show is “postponed, rescheduled or canceled.” Now the only way to get a full refund is if the show is canceled completely, with the words “postponed” and “rescheduled” completely removed from the policy. Keep scrolling to read more about the change and see some of the reactions from angry customers upset at Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster’s policy

Ticketmaster’s new policy on its site officially now reads: “Due to the unprecedented volume of cancellations, please note that you should expect to receive your refund in as soon as 30 days. If the tickets were transferred to you, the refund will go to the fan who originally bought the tickets from Ticketmaster.”

Previous statement

On March 12, Ticketmaster first published a statement explaining which tickets would be refunded during the coronavirus pandemic, telling customers to resell their tickets instead of waiting on their money back. “If your event was postponed or rescheduled and you are unable to attend (and resale is enabled for your event), you can sell your tickets to other fans on our safe and simple Ticketmaster resale marketplace,” the company wrote. “If refunds are not allowed for your event and you post through ticketmaster.com, we will waive seller fees for fans that create(d) resale postings from March 17 through May 31.”

‘A bit of a d— move’

Needless to say, people have been up in arms over the policy change, voicing their anger on Twitter.

‘Good luck with that’

In typical social media practice, plenty of memes popped up on Twitter giving people a way to vent their anger in a more humorous way.

‘I will never use ticketmaster again’

Others got straight to the point with how disgusted they were with the policy change.

StubHub

Ticketmaster isn’t the only ticketing website in hot water over its reimbursement policies amid the coronavirus pandemic.  On March 30, Digital Music News reported StubHub would also not reimburse customers, instead providing vouchers for 120 percent of the price they paid for a ticket that expired after a year. Like Ticketmaster, StubHub told customers they could sell their tickets on the StubHub marketplace, but with no dates for future shows, that had proved almost impossible for many. 

Lawsuit

Last week, StubHub customer Matthew McMillan filed a class action lawsuit against StubHub in Wisconsin, the outlet reported, arguing that the ticketing company “sought to surreptitiously shift their losses onto their innocent customers, furthering the financial hardship endured by people across the country” by changing policies and not giving refunds. In response, StubHub claimed to the Times it is simply middle-man for people selling and buying tickets, claiming giving refunds for all the canceled events “is simply not manageable.”