Readers: Has anyone had trouble with Vivid Seats?
In case you don’t know this company, it’s a ticket purchasing service like Stub Hub. People who have tickets for events that they aren’t going to use post them on Vivid Seats so others can buy them.
Vivid Seats takes a service fee on each deal.
I don’t often put my own consumer problems in this column, but the one I had the other day really annoyed me. So I’m going to share it.
I went to Syracuse last weekend for the football game against Clemson. Vivid Seats said a ticket I bought months ago would be delivered the day of the game.
Sounded simple enough.
So I drove the more than four hours to Syracuse thinking my ticket would be waiting on my phone when I arrived. And Vivid Seats did send me an e-mail on time saying the ticket had been transferred by the seller.
The only problem was: Vivid Seats’ customer service department couldn’t tell me to which Web site or app or e-mail address it had been sent.
I had to call customer service six times! And it still couldn’t explain to me where my ticket was.
I looked on the Vivid Seats app and it showed me what looked like a ticket, giving me the section of the stadium I’d be sitting in. But there was no seat assignment and this “ticket” didn’t have a bar code.
Finally, Dear John just contacted the company’s press representative and told them to cancel the ticket. The problem is, regular people don’t have this connection.
It turns out that a guy sitting on a bench near me outside the stadium while I was going through all this had extra tickets and he sold me one for $30. The Vivid Seats’ ticket had cost me $90, and it was also on the upper level of the stadium.
To its credit, Vivid Seats refunded my money, so I made out on the deal financially. But the aggravation wasn’t worth it.
So has anyone else had a bad experience — or a good one — with Vivid Seats?
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