tekHedd – the blog

Update: I have received a very nice apology. I still don’t have my $12 back though. So a very nice, but entirely insincere apology. Of such things is passive aggression made.

The Letter

At least I got them

I’m not entirely happy with COTA guest services. (Note executive summary for quick delegation!)

I don’t enjoy complaining, and I’m sure you don’t like to hear it. I fully understand that I’m not rich or famous enough for you to care what I think. It’s quite likely that you will delegate the reading of this to someone totally apathetic, whose job is to pretend to care. I understand. That’s fine. That’s called customer service.

Writing takes extra time if you want to be clear, concise, and nice instead of just ranting randomly. The one thing I resent more than anything is that I have to spend time writing an email about this seemingly-inconsequential slight. But, I understand that quality control is important. What would we be if we didn’t even try?

So, here is the timeline on the delivery of my pair of tickets (at a turn about as far from the “good seats” as you can get):

1. I receive an email reminding me to make sure my shipping address is correct. It is not.
2. My wife calls to update our shipping address.
3. She is told that it is updated.
4. I receive tracking information telling me that my tickets have shipped to the old, wrong address. Augh!
5. I call. COTA has the correct address, but Ticketmaster does not. This is because was one of the eager first people to order tickets, and at that time Ticketmaster (yuck) was the only option. When we called COTA to update the address, this information was not communicated to Ticketmaster.
6. Editorial comment: How was I supposed to know that?
7. I am charged $12 to redirect the Fedex package en route. (Fortunately, it won’t be delivered for another 24 hours.) This is my problem. There’s no hurry; he’ll wait while I get a credit card.
8. With no other options, I pay $12.

The man I talked to told me that “he is a manager”, so I have to assume that this is company policy, as is the apathetic attitude.

What has made me mildly annoyed is COTA’s inability to accept any responsibility in the matter. Twelve dollars doesn’t matter. I’m delighted to participate in the ridiculously monetized upsell that is F1. But, I like to pretend that I’m not just another head in the headcount, being drained of cash by apathetic drones who care about nothing but their paychecks. I can’t do all of this pretending by myself. Paying another fee because customer service couldn’t be bothered to tell me about the Ticketmaster (yuck) problem is not helping me to pretend.

At the end of the day, it’s about respect. If you don’t have respect, you don’t have anything.

(signed)

PS – does ANYBODY like Ticketmaster?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.