“Hugely disappointed in the lack of outright consideration for customers and the parting of our hard earned cash that AXS has shown as a service provider. I also deem there to be total inefficiencies in the technology/sales process, which are designed to make the customer lose out and have to spend more money then they originally wanted to.
I am an O2 priority customer and on the day that the pre-sales for the 'Evening with Michelle Obama' event began, I spent a considerable amount of time on the morning of Friday 14th December trying to find suitable tickets.
I clearly remember being unable to select more than 2 seats at a time, which was fine and I ended up purchasing 4 tickets, for seats in 2 different locations. Later that day a friend asked me if I could get them a couple of tickets, I logged onto a second account with o2 and brought these tickets as I didn't want these to be confused with the others I had already brought and selected.
For all the tickets purchased, I received a confirmation email and the money was immediately withdrawn from my account . It was made clear that the tickets would be electronic and that the AXS app would need to be downloaded. The app clearly advertises that you are able to transfer tickets https://faqs.axs.co.uk/, which I had planned to do with the 2 later tickets I had purchased. Weeks after purchase, I am checking the app for my tickets and cannot see the option to transfer tickets. On calling the customer service line, I was told that it was not possible to transfer tickets for this particular event and that I wasn't to worry about my tickets not showing as they were still being released to ticket holders.
On the 19th February, to both my email addresses, I receive an email with the headline 'Important ticket information'. On reading, it says to keep an eye out as more emails are going to be sent and that the tickets are going to be released to the app over the coming days.
I checked the app for the tickets possibly 4/5 days later and they still wasn't there. I then rechecked and saw the 4 tickets in one of my accounts. I wasn't concerned at not seeing the tickets in the other account as it had taken such a long time for them to appear in the one, I just thought that they were still doing the releases and hadn't got to me yet and as I had received the email I had no reason to be concerned. From the 4 tickets, I then decided to sell 2 and the only option to sell is via the AXS resale service, I paid £75 for each ticket , £150 for 2 and with service charges, paid £171 in total. On the 4th March, I listed them for £85.50 each. These were then sold on the very same day.
As it happens, the person that brought it works in my company and sent me a message to say that after a lot of hassle, they had been able to buy the tickets. When I asked how much it had cost them, they told me the following:
Ticket(s): £87.17 x 2: £174.34
Service Charge: £26.14
Handling Fee: £2.50
Total: £202.98
I received an email that the tickets had been sold and that I would receive £158.18 and that I'd be able to add bank account details to my account by the end of March to receive the money and once added it will take 10 days for the money to reach the account. Yesterday, I went back into check if those details could be added. It wasn't possible and the message had been updated to say that it would now be possible to add bank details by the end of April.
I called the customer service line to question this, because the other 2 tickets were not showing in the other account and was told that yes, it would now be end of April before you could add account details and that the other 2 tickets had been cancelled because I had used the same credit card to make the purchase and I had exceeded the purchase limit of 4 tickets. I told them that at the time, this event had no explicit restrictions on the number of total tickets that could be brought and that the only obvious restriction was the 2 at a time limit. The advisor told me that it was always on the website and that it was included in the more information link, I pointed out that it wasn't and that now the site had been updated to include this and also the not being able to transfer tickets (also wasn't there originally).
When I asked when where the tickets cancelled and why I wasn't informed, I was told that it would have been immediate and I received a refund on the 12th December (bearing in mind I purchased on the 13th), that the venue cancelled the tickets not AXS and that neither the venue or AXS would inform me of this cancellation.
When I asked, why did I then on the 19th February receive an email indicating that I still had tickets? She was unable to answer. She advised me to go and take a look for new tickets on the website and of course, looking at them now there are no tickets left in the same price bracket, in which I paid and are now double to three times the amount for one single ticket.
You can appreciate that this has left me in an upset state and difficult position as I now only have 2 physical tickets which are valid. These being 2 which a friend has already brought and paid for, from me, but which I cannot transfer and will need to go to venue with them.
I am at odds to understand and am extremely disappointed, as a result of the following - why;
1) The 4 ticket max wasn't made explicit on the website at the time of pre- sale. Yes, now it is all over the event page and it now also includes the inability to transfer tickets, but at the time (December 2018) this wasn't made clear. (*Having checked app today 8/4/19, still able to select and checkout
more than 4 tickets)
2) Why I received confirmation emails for the purchases of all the tickets, not just on the day of purchase but nearer to the event day, giving the impression that all was ok with the tickets?
3) Why is there no system to notify customers if and when a ticket has been cancelled? This suggests to me a lack of regard for the entire sales process or the customer, as you are able to confirm purchase, but don't think it important enough to communicate anything else to do with the sales transaction.
4) On the 2 tickets sold via the resale service, I managed to lose out by £12.82 for selling them. Including service charge fees, AXS made £57.62. I wasn't expecting to make a profit, but an amount equal to total costs, would be fair and how can the 'service charges' charged by AXS, when these were supposed to be electronic tickets, be justified and I service charge has already been applied through the first sale?
5) These extra tickets were sold early March and I am not expected to wait until end of April for the ability to add details for these funds to be transferred to my account, plus there could be a further 10 days wait for clearance. This is unreasonable. I am now in a position in which I am expected to buy new tickets at over twice the price to replace the ones that have been cancelled, the fact being that I couldn't even buy one replacement ticket with the amount being refunded now, and if I was relying on this money, I now have to wait until after the event?
The entire experience has left a very bitter taste in my mouth and I don't think that I would be the first person to be caught out by these various issues and/or sequence of events, which have ultimately left me out of pocket and ticketless.
If only to the point that tickets can be cancelled and customers are supposed to know this and then purchase again, I would imagine has resulted in lots of customers paying above the odds for the event they wanted to see and secondly the idea that the fees are heavily geared towards AXS' benefit and not the customer, I think is also outrageous.
Having responded within hours
to my initial tweets asking for further details. It is now 3 days and AXS have gone quiet and not confirmed any of the transaction details sent to them.”
“Bought tickets for a Diana Ross concert in June ( Leeds ) cancelled and when I requested our money back we have been informed that it wont be refunded until a re-scheduled date has been arranged. At 76 Diana Ross is not a young lady and her chances of even doing another tour are slim, especially with coronovirus. Does this mean we will never get our money back. !!!!!
Be warned do not use AXS for buying tickets.
( £175 down the drain )”
“The worst night of my life.
Booked 2 tickets weeks to the O2 Tennis Masters. planned dinner evening with the wife, possibly watch a movie is there's time as well.
but to my utter horror, was told on the day of the event that i needed to download their AXS app to get my tickets.
did exactly that and found out i had been given only 1 ticket. i called the number in the mail and when i eventually got to talk to some1, it went back and forth for well over an hour as the event had already started. what a joke!!!
i had to even send him the confirmation mail AXS sent for the two tickets purchased but still could not get the second ticket sorted. My plans for the night with the wife ruined, my night ruined it was a total disaster.
As i write this, I have still not received a refund nor compensation. If this goes on I can assure that I will sue this company.
What an absolutely shambolic arrangement”
“The worst night of my life.
Booked 2 tickets weeks to the O2 Tennis Masters. planned dinner evening with the wife, possibly watch a movie is there's time as well.
but to my utter horror, was told on the day of the event that i needed to download their AXS app to get my tickets.
did exactly that and found out i had been given only 1 ticket. i called the number in the mail and when i eventually got to talk to some1, it went back and forth for well over an hour as the event had already started. what a joke!!!
i had to even send him the confirmation mail AXS sent for the two tickets purchased but still could not get the second ticket sorted. My plans for the night with the wife ruined, my night ruined it was a total disaster.
As i write this, I have still not received a refund nor compensation for this madness. If this goes on I can assure that I will sue this company.
What an absolutely shambolic arrangement”
