Have we found the largest ever ‘processing fee’ charged by a ticket company? If you were to guess how much that fee might be, what would you say? £10? £50? £100? Try again…
What would you think if you were charged £178.99 for buying tickets to see your favourite band? That’s exactly what one Which? member was faced with.
She was left outraged after purchasing six tickets from GetMeIn! (the Ticketmaster-owned secondary ticket website) to see Fleetwood Mac at London’s O2 arena. It wasn’t paying £159.50 for each one, despite a face value of £80, that made her blood boil, but GetMeIn!’s £178.99 ‘processing fee’ (almost £30 per ticket). To add insult to injury, GetMeIn! charged a £2.40 ‘delivery fee’ for the print-at-home ‘e-tickets’.
Fleetwood Mac concertgoer hit with £179 ‘processing fee’
We contacted GetMeIn! to ask what its processing fee is made up of, and it said that ‘all fees are calculated on a per order basis’. It told us that, like most online marketplaces, it charges a fee that ‘corresponds with the transaction size, as this best reflects the risks and costs of the transaction’. GetMeIn! also said it is transparent about its fees and they are clearly displayed on the order summary page.
This explanation offered little consolation to the Which? member, who didn’t spot the fees before the payment went through. She told us:
‘Outrageous rip-off. I will never do business with this company again.’
Have you been hit with a bigger ticket fee? Don’t be shy, share your examples in the comments below.