A little off-topic today, but my whole purpose is to give back by sharing my good and bad experiences. Last month, I purchased Auburn vs. Kansas State tickets on StubHub for some clients. I normally buy tickets through Empire Tickets, which is a great broker in Atlanta, but they didn't have any good seats at the time, so I decided to go with StubHub. They had the seats I wanted and the Fan Guarantee, which seemed to be good protection.

For those of you who aren't familiar with StubHub, it's a website that let's owners of tickets list them for buyers. They act as the intermediary so that the buyer and seller have peace of mind about their funds, and charge a commission on both ends for this service. It seems like a good service. I ordered the tickets on the web, received a confirmation email with a date to expect the tickets (season tickets aren't mailed out until a certain date), and then I waited.

A day after the tickets were supposed to arrive, my assistant called to check on them. She had trouble getting through on the number, and then waited on hold for quite a while. No worries, the customer service agent assured, the tickets just arrived, and the owner will send them the next day. Fast forward to the next week -- no tickets. Another call (still a long wait) with a similar answer -- they'll go out tomorrow. Is it just me, or does this sound a little like another well-known line about a check? The last calls, made 3 days before the event, each took 30 minutes on hold before reaching a customer service representative. Fortunately, we checked with Empire, who now had almost identical seats for less than we paid before. In the meantime, we received a call back from StubHub, informing us that the owner did not receive the tickets we ordered, and would we accept the tickets he received (a few rows back). There was no offer to lower the price of the tickets or to refund the 10% commission they charged me earlier.

In the end, StubHub agreed to cancel the order. I asked for an email or fax to confirm that they were canceling it and refunding my money, but that just wasn't possible. When I expressed my concern about not having a guarantee of the cancellation in writing, the customer service agent assured me that she had been with the company a long time, was noting it on my account, and that I could trust her. Hmm...I feel much better now. Oh well, I'm sure the credit will come, but I'm still out a few hours of my time.