It turns out, one CAN get Ticketmaster to crack open its wallet and issue a refund after a bad customer service experience. You just...

It turns out, one CAN get Ticketmaster to crack open its wallet and issue a refund after a bad customer service experience.

You just have to know a few board members personally is all.

Paula Liang works in the world of charitable giving in Florida, and as part of a Christmas gift, brought her entire family through to New York in March of 2016. She bought six tickets – for herself and her husband, for her son and daughter-in-law (travelling from Boston), and then for her two daughters who live in New York. Between the tickets – purchased on Ticketmaster’s resale site, prominently marketed as the only “verified” platform for ticket resale – and travel/hotel arrangements, she spent close to $10,000.

Upon arrival at the venue, there was a problem: Several of the tickets had been scanned in already. After a great deal of waiting around, her family was actually accommodated – in obstructed-view aisle seats.

Needless to say, she was not a satisfied customer.

Her calls to Ticketmaster customer service didn’t improve the experience. She was ignored, offered a $100 rebate rather than a refund (the reasoning: She had seen the show, albeit from folding chairs with obstructions), and essentially told to go away. “When I told [the customer service agent] it was outrageous and that I did not get the experience I paid way too much for, and asked to speak to the Director, she told me the Director ‘does not speak to the public,'” she said in her complaint lodged with the New York AG’s office. “I am not making this up.”

So, she did what very few consumers have the ability to do: She escalated the call right to the top of the chain.

In a letter dated April 20 of 2016, Liang outlined her experience at the musical and with the customer service department at Ticketmaster. She sent it to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, with copies going to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Hamilton creator (and then star) Lin Manuel Miranda, and two gentlemen named Robert Ted Enloe, III and James D. Kahan. She did not have a personal connection with Mr. Miranda or Mr. Rapino. But she did with Enloe and Kahan. Both are members of Live Nation’s Board of Directors, Kahan since 2006 and Enloe since 2007.

“I was lucky my husband knew two board members, had their emails so I could send them copies [of her complaint letter,]” Liang says, granting that she didn’t “think my experience is typical” when dealing with customer service at any company, let alone Ticketmaster. “That got the attention of the CEO.

“I got a call from the boss of the woman who told me “I took my chances” buying resale tickets. He took the time to look through my account to see that I had bought thousands of dollars of tickets from them. I also explained what it was like ten minutes to curtain in a Broadway theater, because they kept asking me why the usher didn’t kick the women with the StubHub tickets out. The whole thing was pretty surreal.”

Miranda, who has strongly opposed ticket resale in public, did not reply to Mrs. Liang or TicketNews’ requests for comment. Despite their public stances, producers of the show have been said to participate in the secondary market to increase their own profit margins, as well as increasing the price of the show to nearly $1,000 for every prime seat in the house.

A well-placed industry source also confirmed for TicketNews that representatives of the Nederlander organization denied that there are ever any invalid or non-filled orders by the Nederlander venue or official partners. This was in reaction to a suggestion by former Democratic state senator Daniel Squadron that such issues be addressed with a 2-300% refund by the vendor in a in a meeting with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s staff to discuss future legislation regarding ticketing in the Empire State. Officials representing NY Attorney General Schneiderman’s office who know of and had documented cases of such invalid tickets being sold to consumers, did not choose to challenge the inaccurate statement at the time to Republicans and members of Cuomo’s staff.