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Irix

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Happy24

Plus another thing is, that sending back the tickets can not be seen as accepting the voucher, since there is no choice.

Yes, but there's the German law (at least valid for Eventim) and their choice #1 is the Voucher, the Refund is only possible in case of plights.

I guess you are right. I will wait. But even if I get some voucher, I don't expect to use it. I don't expect any act that I would be willing to travel abroad for to be on tour the next year.

In that case, I have a right for a refund in 2022. In theory. But the refund (in 2022) is to be claimed from the promoter, not eventim! But that is laughable, since I never paid any money do the promoter, so I have no legal connection with him. He can just laugh at me and that is all. And we have laws for this. As I wrote before, the only reasonable thing is to forget about it and let it be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-10 17:01 by Happy24.

The ticketing agencies across the globe have really screwed themselves royally by playing games and making excuses instead of promptly issuing refunds for events that are not happening . Same in sports as well where the 2 biggest culprits are the NY Yankees & NY Mets . What do the ticketing agencies think that the average consumer after getting burned/stiffed is going to willingly fork over more $ next year in hopes of a lousy nights worth of outrageously priced ducats ? It's a dying industry trying desperately to hang on to every last penny ! Which sucks for the consumer that has to pay there mortgage / rent / grocery bill /living expenses . With so many people affected across the globe -they need there funds back ASAP .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-10 17:16 by TheGreek.

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Happy24

I guess you are right. I will wait. But even if I get some voucher, I don't expect to use it. I don't expect any act that I would be willing to travel abroad for to be on tour the next year.

You could try to contact the Promoter (Live Nation?), describe the situation (cancelled Concert, abroad, useless Voucher) and that you wanna have a Refund. If Live Nation explicit agrees for the Refund, you could show this Eventim, deny the Voucher and try to demand the Refund instead.

It's all complicated, normally you'll need a lawyer for such a case. But the question is if it's worth it, e.g. €200 fees for the lawyer, to get back the €35 shipping costs from Eventim ....

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Irix

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Happy24

I guess you are right. I will wait. But even if I get some voucher, I don't expect to use it. I don't expect any act that I would be willing to travel abroad for to be on tour the next year.

You could try to contact the Promoter (Live Nation?), describe the situation (cancelled Concert, abroad) and that you wanna have a Refund. If Live Nation explicit agrees for the Refund you can show this Eventim, deny the Voucher and try to demand the Refund instead.

It's all complicated, normally you'll need a lawyer for such a case. But the question is if it's worth it, e.g. €200 fees for the lawyer, to get back the €35 shipping costs from Eventim ....

Well, if we get into this, it gets even more complex. :-)

This particular concert had actually 2 promoters. Livenation and Argo konzerte. I wrote e-mails to both of them about a month ago, giving a simple question, whether I should get a refund or a voucher. In both cases I got generic e-mails how sorry they were about the current situation and that I can check the status of events at their web pages. No clear answer. They all act totally alike...

And now, since there are 2 promoters, how would the voucher actually work? For events of both of them or just one? And if I was to apply for a refund in 2022, which promoter would pay me back? Of course, I know whe answer - none.

See, it is a total mess. The more you get into it, the clearer is, that there is no way to get the money or some value back. Again, the promoters and vendors act like total di..s, but it would all not be possible if there were not special laws made for this. That is the saddest part I see.

How much money could the promoters already spend on a rather small outdoor concert (in Dresden's Junge Garde), that was cancelled more than 3 months in advance? Yet by law they are entitled to keep ALL the money...

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Happy24

And now, since there are 2 promoters, how would the voucher actually work? For events of both of them or just one? And if I was to apply for a refund in 2022, which promoter would pay me back?

Yes, there're 2 Promoters - a global Tour-Promoter (Live Nation) and a local Promoter in the City of the Event (e.g. ARGO Konzerte). In my opinion the global Tour-Promoter (Live Nation) is the main responsible. The local Promoter is only a Contractor for the specific City, he gets only the directions and gets paid by the global Promoter. Eventim gives the money to the global Promoter, therefore I would always go to the global Promoter. Just my opinion, but I'm no lawyer.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-10 18:10 by Irix.

Okay, today I got the promoter voucher. Just two numbers (for two tickets) by e-amil, after I was forced to post the physicel tickets by post. As I wrote before, there were two promoters of the event - LiveNation and ARGO Konzerte. Of course, it says the voucher is valid for the ARGO Konzerte events. So... it is pretty much useless. F..k the bastards.

I have tickets to one of the Elton John "farewell tour" shows in Oslo Norway Sept this year. Just now I got an e-mail saying the show is postponed until September 2021. They never asked if it was ok for me to hold on to the ticket, and to give them a loan of my money for 12 more month. They did not even tell me what to do if I wanted a refund.

Bjornulf

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bv
I have tickets to one of the Elton John "farewell tour" shows in Oslo Norway Sept this year. Just now I got an e-mail saying the show is postponed until September 2021. They never asked if it was ok for me to hold on to the ticket, and to give them a loan of my money for 12 more month. They did not even tell me what to do if I wanted a refund.

The general rule these days is, that if a show is postponed, one is NOT ALLOWED to return tickets. If a show is cancelled, they keep your money anyway and give you a voucher. There are exceptions I read about, but in most cases it is just this way.

I don't know how is it in Norway, but many countries have special laws made for that. "We have to save the business" - which means that people who bought tickets are sentenced to sponsor Ticketmaster, Livenation...by law. (The same applies for travel agencies and people who already paid for their holiday, that won't take place. Which is even more sad, since it generally involves much more money that those people have paid and they have absolutely no way to get anything else than vouchers. Again - by laws.)

I personally had luckily only 6 concerts for this year, can't remember the last year when I had so few. 5 of them were postponed and I am happy with that, since the alternative with cancelled concerts (I had 1 and it is described in detail in this thread) is nerve-wrecking and leads nowhere. However, I can see that some people are not okay with their shows being postponed for 1-1,5 a year and not baing able to return the tickets.

It all stinks a big time.

In our country they wanted to make some kind of a festival in 5 cities, where 5-6 our "biggest acts" would perform. Acts, that sell out arenas, some even stadiums. They apparently made a plan how to divide the audience in 5 sectors, so that the whole capacity would be 2,5 thousand people (1 thousand is generally allowed now). Today they canceled it all, since the tickets didn't sell at all... The question is, how much is it because people simply don't want to get into larger groups and how much is it that they don't want to put their money into it, because of how those scams behave. I think it is both. To be fair it is needed to say, that they will return the money in this case.

And so now it starts to show - this brutal robbery, which is supposed to "save the show business" might be the biggest blow that will actually destroy it. Of course, this year might be a goldmine for those involved - keeping all the money for nothing, just announcing bankruptcy the next year while all the money will be safely gone.

I hope I am wrong. But it is very common that tickets are being sold for concerts that are absolutely clear that will not take place. They just want to squeeze every last penny out of it. Some large (LiveNation) concerts are still being canceled just a couple of days or even one day before the the date of the concert, while it has been clear for 3 months that they won't happen.

I wonder if the tours that were postponed till 2021 will go ahead, if the whole bussiness stays pretty much totally dry for one year. Right now I can't imagine how could that happen.

Would just like to point out that the situation is not the same in all countries. In Finland, for example, there is no law about a voucher you have to accept for cancelled events. Also, for the majority of postponed/rescheduled events, you have the choice of a refund. (Granted, it seems to be at the artist's/promoter's discretion - but even major names are offering refunds)

Elton John's Helsinki dates were postponed by a year, but Live Nation Finland is offering refunds for those that can't make the new dates. Same with Eric Clapton, Céline Dion and similar big names. I don't know whether that just has to do with our consumer protection laws.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-15 13:29 by Topi.

I have 2 LD tix for San Diego. On the one hand, I doubt I will use them; on the other, they were cheap.

It does seem though that the tour is off and thus refunds should have been/now be issued. However, the system we have chosen to accept to live in does not function this way.

Topi, it is actually great to read that somewhere it works the way it should. Good for Finland. I think it actually says a lot about the society. Unfortunately nothing like that can be said about our country, which doesn't surprize me. But I am still surprized that Germany goes this crooked way too. But there are many other countries too - I think Austria, Italy, France, Belgium... I am not sure, I might be wrong about some of them, while I am sure the list is longer.

Anyway, I don't think it has much to do with consumer protection laws, we have those too, but they are now just overruled. For instance if you pay for a holiday, you have a signed contract with the travel agency, which clearly says, that if the holiday can not take place and is cancelled by the travel agency, the custommer gets all the money back. Suddenly travel agencies don't need to follow the contract, while the custommers must... Nice, isn't it? I have one such contract now... the most expensive toilet paper I've ever bought...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-15 07:34 by Happy24.

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bv
I have tickets to one of the Elton John "farewell tour" shows in Oslo Norway Sept this year. Just now I got an e-mail saying the show is postponed until September 2021. They never asked if it was ok for me to hold on to the ticket, and to give them a loan of my money for 12 more month. They did not even tell me what to do if I wanted a refund.

I have Elton John for Knoxville last June 6. I received a "letter" from Elton saying he was allowing refunds for 30 days until July 2 because he does not feel confident announcing new dates for the U.S. until a vaccine is available. He further said a second 30 days refund window would be allowed when a new date is finally announced.

It took awhile for Elton to do this since the tour was postponed in March but I thought it went above and beyond the norm.

I'm surprised your situation is so different.

Everyone should remember this before they ever let Ticketmaster and Live Nation ever have a penny again .

Can't the bank replenish the account and resolve the issue? That is what I usually do during a transaction dispute.

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Happy24

As I wrote before, there were two promoters of the event - LiveNation and ARGO Konzerte. Of course, it says the voucher is valid for the ARGO Konzerte events.

Strange that this is not a general voucher that you can redeem on Eventim. The upcoming events on [www.Argo-Konzerte.de] look rather boring, so the voucher could indeed be useless for you. I would try to contact Live Nation, describe that you've got the voucher, but there's no alternative event (the original event was cancelled) and that you wanna have a voucher valid for all Live Nation events (instead of Argo only).

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Chris Fountain
Can't the bank replenish the account and resolve the issue? That is what I usually do during a transaction dispute.

When I buy stuff outside Norway I pay with my American Express card, and if there is a dispute, amex are great because they refund and then chase the ones who drag their feet. This happened with both my intercontinental flight to USA for the tour this year, and another prepaid booking.

As for anything I pay for local in Norway, we pay by band transfer direct, and the bank could not care less if there is a dispute.

If Elton John is touring one year from now, fine, I will see him, but if the tour is delayed for 2-3 years, I think he should refund. I will see what is happening for the next 12 months.

Bjornulf

Not sure if it's relevant, but I spoke to a Ticketmaster representative related to a refund for one of the Stones' show for the postponed tour.

AEG has authorized refunds through March 2022.

May indicate that they are already operating with 2022 as Plan A.

May be nothing, but figured I'd share.

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bv

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Chris Fountain
Can't the bank replenish the account and resolve the issue? That is what I usually do during a transaction dispute.

When I buy stuff outside Norway I pay with my American Express card, and if there is a dispute, amex are great because they refund and then chase the ones who drag their feet.

I tried that in my case (for the first time in my life) and the bank said that because of the voucher law I had to apply for the voucher. Only If I wouldn't get the voucher, then they would start the chargeback process. And that was at the time when the official eventim instructions said that there would actually be a refund! (that I tried to get from them for more than a month at that time). They then changed the refund instructions for a voucher couple of days after I asked for the chargeback.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-16 07:52 by Happy24.

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Irix

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Happy24

As I wrote before, there were two promoters of the event - LiveNation and ARGO Konzerte. Of course, it says the voucher is valid for the ARGO Konzerte events.

Strange that this is not a general voucher that you can redeem on Eventim. The upcoming events on [www.Argo-Konzerte.de] look rather boring, so the voucher could indeed be useless for you. I would try to contact Live Nation, describe that you've got the voucher, but there's no alternative event (the original event was cancelled) and that you wanna have a voucher valid for all Live Nation events (instead of Argo only).

Yes, this is the last thing I can do. But since I contacted them about 1,5 months ago already and they absolutely didn't bother to answer my question, just sent me a generic e-mail, I think I know the result. This way LN is not involved at all, I can't see them making any effort for taking responsibility. After all - it is the promoter who issues the voucher, so they must know they put this whole event on Argo. It is probably a LiveNation arrangement.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-16 15:03 by Happy24.

... and just to show how these fu...rs behave, I enclose the e-mail I wrote to eventim after I got the vouchers and the eventim answer - a ganeric e-mail in German that doesn't even try to answer my questions.

Note, that they present my return of the tickets as my wish - "Wir haben Ihren Wunsch..." This is total twisting of the situation. I did the only thing eventim let me to do after I expressed many times what my wish was - to get back my money for a concert that was cancelled by the promoter without the possibility of another date.

My e-mail (2020-07-13):

Dear Mr. / Mrs.

Thank you for sending me the promoter vouchers.

However, there were two promoters of the event that was cancelled - LiveNation and ARGO Konzerte. The voucher is issued by ARGO Konzerte. Does it mean that it can not be used for LiveNation events? That would very much limit the use of the voucher and I don't understand why, since LiveNation was also the promoter.

Also, I would like to know where and how can I apply for the money refund after Dec.31 2021, since for me, as someone from abroad, who bought tickets from evetim.de many times before, a voucher from ARGO Konzerte is probably almost useless.

Eventim.de answer (2020-07-15):

Lieber EVENTIM-Kunde,

vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage.

Wir haben Ihren Wunsch nach einer Rückerstattung des Ticketpreises erhalten. Der Veranstalter Ihres Events hat sich für den von der Bundesregierung verabschiedeten Veranstaltergutschein entschieden. Deshalb ist eine Rückabwicklung nur in Form des Gutscheins möglich.

Der deutsche Gesetzgeber hat am 15. Mai 2020 das Gesetz zur Gutscheinlösung verabschiedet. Ein Veranstalter einer Musik-, Kultur- oder Sport-Veranstaltung, die wegen der COVID-19-Pandemie nicht stattfinden konnte oder kann, ist demnach berechtigt, statt einer Gutschrift einen Gutschein auszuhändigen. Es ist der Veranstalter, der entscheidet, ob wir Ihnen Geld erstatten dürfen oder ob Sie einen Gutschein erhalten. Wir als Eventim handeln im Auftrag dieses Veranstalters.

Freundliche Grüße aus Bremen
Ihr eventim.de - Kundenservice



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-16 11:26 by Happy24.

This illegal (against EU laws) behaviour will kill most of the event and concert business and at least half of the airlines. Still wait for nearly 2.000€ from Lufthansa for flights THEY cancelled, since March. I won't buy any concert or flight ticket for the next years. And I won't be the only one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-16 09:50 by micawber.

The ticket industry is sitting on "postponed" concert ticket values worth quite a bit of money, taking it as an unapproved illegal loan from ordinary people. Still, they will lose tenfold or more when they will try to sell tickets in advance for the future. Nobody will trust them their money a 2nd time around. Like if a shark has bitten off one of your arms, would you still go swimming with it with your remaining other arm?

Bjornulf

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bv
The ticket industry is sitting on "postponed" concert ticket values worth quite a bit of money.

Not only that. In a lot of countries they are also sitting on all the oficially cancelled (there will be no new date) concert tickets values worth. For at least for 1,5 a year. And well, as I wrote before, I don't believe they would start returning the money in 2022, since then one should apply for the refund at the promoter, who never got any money directly from people. And the ticket vendors who got the money from people's accounts have officially nothing to do with it after they "intermediated" the voucher.

I know I am repeating myself, I am sorry, I know I go on an on about this, but my brain is just not albe to process this. Taking someone's money without providing any value whatsoever was until now called a robbery if memory serves and it was illegal. Now, since 1-2 months ago, in many countries, we have laws that make this legal for some pivileged groups.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-07-16 15:21 by Happy24.

We have laws and a strong legal system in Norway, protecting the consumers. I will use that system to get my money back. It is not about the money, but about the ethics. I paid a lot for the tickets, they are sitting on my money, but they have had little to none expenses. The Elton John shows are in September, and I am sure they have insurance.

First it took mye a lot of time getting to a "customer complaint" form, clearly hidden away on ticketmaster.no. Then I filled in that form, and luckily I got a receipt by e-mail, saying it might take up to 60 days to process.

So next phase is contacting forbrukerradet.no, they are our national Norwegian Consumer Council. Then rest assured it will be a long long while until I trust Ticketmaster Norway my money on any sorts of tickets until they have refunded me.

These guys do only understand one language - money - i.e. the loss of income through consumer power.

Bjornulf

The lack of competition in ticket selling has led to virtual monopolies that know they can dictate terms to consumers, bands and venues. Remember Pearl Jam's battle with Ticketmaster?

Tours and Events going on sale months before their performance date gives them even more time to play the float game, using our money to invest and make more money. Every decent size bank uses the float (the hours to days between when you make a deposit or payment and the money actually gets into your account) to make a lot of profit. With concert tix, the float period is months and the dollars HUGE.

Our desire to attend shows even with outrageous prices, fees and terms allows it to happen. With the virtual monopolies, there is not a promoter or ticket seller with the fan's best interests in mind. They just want to exploit your passion to still buy tix to see bands without caring about the fine print. It was one thing when a ticket was $10....another when it could be a week's pay or more.

3,5 monts after I started this thread about the hopeless task of trying to get a refund from eventim.de for tickets for a concert that was cancelled, I am here to report that I have got my money back! Unbelieveble.

The story goes like this: the concert was about to happen at the end of July. It was cancelled (with no new date, just cancelled for good) 3 months in advance (in April) and the official info said that the tickets will be refunded.

For 2 months I tried to get that refund, while eventim.de was not communicatig.

After 2 months they changed the rules and said that custommest will get vouchers. They demanded that I had to send them back the physical tickets. I did that (paid for it again of course), eventhough all information that eventim needed is of course stored in my account. After another month and number of e-mails, I got the voucher - just a number sent in a text of an e-mail. It only had the value of the tickets, excluding the 35E for postage (which I expected) and 4E for booking fees.

There were 2 issues (except of the main fact that by all logic I had to get back my money of course, which for quite a long time was even the official instruction by eventim itself). The voucher was only valid for events of Argo Konzerte (a small local promoter), while there were two promoters - also Live Nation. The voucher was not valid for LN events. And then the German law about vouchers clearly says, that the voucher must have a value of the tickets + all booking fees.

I asked eventim why was the voucher not valid for the LN events and why the value was excluding the booking fees, which was in contradiction with the law.

I got a shameless answer, that there was only one producer of that event - Argo Konzerte. And that the booking fees were excluded, because those services were already provided.

I was forced to send back the tickets, but luckily I had scans. Live Nation was mentioned 5 times on each and every ticket! It was clearly writen there as a producer, there was a logo, www link, social media links.. As for the booking fees - the German law is absolutely clear about that.

As I was adviced here (by Topi, I think), I asked my bank for a charge back, which I have never done before. For two months I have been communiating with one lady from my bank and eventhough she was really nice and I had a feeling she really tried, I didn't believe in success, eventim.de was just clearly laughing at me...

The lady from the bank wrote me, that in this case they couldn't do the chargeback right away, that they had to send it all to eventim and wait for their statement. The last time I was communiating with her was at the end of July.

Yesterday, a month later, the money arrived. All the money, including the postage. The whole payment. I am really happy about it. First it is quite a lot of money, but mostly because of the fact, that there still is some justice, which in this particular case I ceased to believe in.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-06 07:43 by Happy24.

Glad you were made whole!

Congratulations

-------------------
Keep On Rolling

I am very glad to read you have been successful in receiving what you were rightfully owed.
I hope the people who are responsible for making these decisions on holding back consumers money are made to really regret their decision making one way or another further down the line.

Nate

Congrats. Eventim is even worse than Live Nation having dealt with them for some Clapton tickets.