Can Anyone Solve This Ticketmaster Riddle?

Authored by Rohit Bhargava on August 9, 2007 - 3:14am.

I am a passionate hater of Ticketmaster.com.  Paying a surcharge to a site whose main purpose is to make it difficult for me to complete an online transaction seems wrong on every level.  Imagine you were forced to make every travel booking for any hotel you ever wanted to stay at through Expedia.com.  That's the equivalent of the monopoly Ticketmaster has, and it's amazing in our world of increasing choice online that an old world monopoly like theirs has managed to last this long.  Here's my latest frustration:

Imb_ticketmasterriddle

If you can tell me what this CAPTCHA actually says, I'll give you a million dollars.  Just post your best guess, along with your swiss bank account number so I can wire you the money if you're right ...

Rohit Bhargava

This piece was originally published on Rohit's blog, Influential Marketing, and is posted on DMW with the author's permission. Rohit's bio can be viewed here.


Comments

Translation

burnt.... You gotta believe there's an easier way to keep spammers at bay. n

Agreed.

I fully agree. Ticketmaster's reign of tyranny has gone on far too long. As for the CAPTCHA, does that say "burnt"? bank account number to follow...

YES YES YES! I am INFURITED

YES YES YES! I am INFURITED by TM. I called the theater box office to find out if they did, indeed, sell tickets in person, but the Box Office phone number told me to call Ticketmaster too! My personal favorite is the way they want to charge you for the "premium" service of printing the tickets on your own computer.. using your own ink and paper...

Addressing the Real Issues should be what were talking about.

Ok so I've read through your posts. I also thought the same thing for a long time with what you all are saying. In order for a company to make any money they have to have some kind of fee. Nothing is free in this world. People have to get paid for there work to. What would you all say if I came to your work and said that I wanted your product for free because I don't think I should have to pay for it. Then at the end of the month your boss comes to you and says that they don't have enough revenue coming in to pay you. Same Thing. Ticket prices without the service fees are just funds going to the Artist/Venue. Not a penny of that goes to Ticketmaster. Those fees are there to pay ticketmaster for the work they do. There's alot more that goes on in the backround of ticketmaster then you all think. Ticketmaster does all the planning for most of the major event. Seating Charts, Gate Scanning, pre event preperations, etc. If you would sit down and look at all that ticketmaster does you'd be surprised. Also those service fees are'nt all ticketmaster's either. Ticketmaster only gets a certian cut of that fee. It usually ends up being around a dollor a ticket if not less. So figure it out. 20,000 people times a Dollor or less. Then you have to pay your employee's and keep your technology up to the standards of what the venue wants to. (and by the way if you want a cheap company to buy from then go to walmart, they don't care about there employees getting paid. Just look at the 2 billion dollor suite agianst them. is that a company you really want ticketmaster to be.) As far as the box office is concerned. You can't call them. They don't do sales over the phone. That's not ticketmaster, that's the box office. The box office reports to that venue and not ticketmaster so thats not there fault. As far as fees, I geuss with gas prices what are you complaining about. You pay a 8 for each ticket and you buy 2 tickets. 16 Dollors out. Well think about it. 60 miles away takes about 18 to 20 dollors to drive depending on your vehicles gas mileage. Your spending the same at a ticket center or online buying a ticket with the service fee instead of WAISTING VALUABLE TIME driving all the way to the venue were the events going to be and paying just for the ticket and spending all the cash you were just complaining you had to dish out into your tank just to get you there and back. Come on common sense people. Well I geuss what I'm saying is that I use to think the same thing until I started working for them. In my opinion, working for ticketmaster is better then working for walmart, I've worked for both and walmart could care less about there employees. That's why there so cheap. Employee's don't get paid for what they should. Maybe you should consider changing this forum to looking at what walmart has wrong with them. Ticketmaster has'nt done any wrong in my opinion. Even when I was'nt working for them, there was'nt anything I could have pinned on them that was bad. I think people need to stop complaining about the little things and start looking at the main issues.

I think people need to stop

I think people need to stop complaining about the little things and start looking at the main issues.

There is no other way to keep spammers away..

I think you must start believing in Ticketmaster, Because this is the way to keep spammers away, You are right mate that banks are having easy verification process on internet...But Ticketmaster is also not that much complicated...

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