The concert will start in mid-May 2024, and pre-sales will start on December 9, 2023.
Recently, the news that Jay Chou's concert tickets will be pre-sold half a year in advance has sparked heated discussions. At the beginning of the pre-sale, many netizens posted questions about the fact that charging tickets half a year in advance is expensive and unreasonable. 48 hours after the pre-sale opens, a 30% handling fee will be charged for refunds, which also makes some people feel dissatisfied: some people think that it is impossible to predict whether other arrangements will affect the performance itinerary after half a year, and the 30% refund fee is too high.
With the development of online ticketing platforms, many performances and exhibitions have released advance tickets in advance to attract consumers. However, the reporter of "Rule of Law**" found in the investigation that there are many disputes caused by online pre-sale tickets, such as the inconsistency between the promotional content and the actual situation, the difficulty of refunding tickets, and the long pre-sale cycle. Some consumers complained: "Advance tickets initially had advantages such as discounted prices and optional seats, but now they have become a 'scarce commodity', which has to be grabbed by grabbing, and once problems are encountered, follow-up rights protection is time-consuming and laborious." ”
The propaganda does not match the reality
On a complaint platform, the reporter searched with keywords such as "advance tickets" and found that there were dozens of related complaints recently, mainly involving consumers who found that the items they purchased did not match or did not exist after purchasing tickets.
In October this year, Chen Long, a college student in Tianjin, spent 688 yuan on Damai.com to buy a ticket for the "Why Youth" Chinese classic golden song concert, and when the performance date was approaching, Chen Long found that the organizer issued an announcement saying that "due to the stage blocking, part of the 688 yuan position was adjusted to 488 yuan", but did not refund the difference in the price of the tickets that had been sold before.
On the day of the performance, after Chen Long took his seat according to the position on the ticket, he found that he was arranged to the farthest place from the stage, and the position in the same row with him was adjusted to 488 yuan. What made him even more angry was that the number of songs sung during the performance had shrunk considerably. When it was advertised, it was said that there were 36 songs, but only 24 songs were sung. "Looking at the song list in the promotion, there are more than a dozen songs that I like and why I bought tickets, but in the end, I only sang a few songs that I liked, and the others were deleted or replaced. Chen Long said.
Not long ago, Wang Li from Dongguan, Guangdong Province, spent 228 yuan on the ticketing platform to buy an "early bird ticket" (discount ticket released by the merchant in advance) for the "Dongguan Chaotai** Festival" with an original price of 338 yuan. As the performance time approached, Wang Li found that the tickets that had been discounted when he bought them appeared lower**, and they were sold on many platforms at the same time, and each one was lower than the other. What made Wang Li even more unacceptable was that there were situations such as refueling and sending tickets, and a local university sending tickets for free, so Wang Li wanted to refund the ticket and buy a lower ticket from other platforms, but the merchant said that he could not refund the ticket.
Wang Li could only reluctantly accept the reality of watching the performance. But what made him even more angry was that after the performance, he found that his favorite guest's performance was only ten minutes, which was obviously inconsistent with the half-hour duration of the pre-promotion, which could be described as a great shrinkage. "Not only that, but I found that all the guests performed for less than the promotional time, and the gap between the two guests' appearances became longer and longer, which is called an intermission, and it was a half-hour advertisement. ”
In this regard, Wu Jingming, director of the China Consumers Association and vice president of the Beijing Consumer Law Society, believes that if the operator does not sincerely provide the promised goods or services, but only uses "discount pre-sale" to make false marketing means to extract consumers' money, it not only infringes on consumers' right to know and the right to fair trade, but also constitutes fraud against consumers once they have a transaction with them. The merchant shall bear the legal responsibility for fraud, return the price and pay punitive damages equal to 3 times the price in accordance with the relevant provisions of the consumer rights and interests protection**.
In the view of lawyer Ma Lihong, a senior partner of Beijing Deheheng Law Firm, the organizer ** pre-sale tickets, and consumers purchase the tickets, a contractual relationship is formed, and the merchant should provide goods or services that meet the promise at the time of sale. If the merchant fails to fulfill the promise made at the time of publicity, it constitutes a breach of contract and shall bear the corresponding liability for breach of contract, that is, refund the ticket or compensate the consumer for the losses caused thereby.
It is difficult to get a full refund after purchasing a ticket
Two months ago, Li Li from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province spent 592 yuan on the ticketing platform to buy pre-sale tickets for a star's concert in Shenzhen.
Li Li told reporters that the tickets that went on sale at 3:30 p.m. on October 11 showed on the ticket purchase page that "unconditional refunds can be made within 24 hours of the sale", but when she applied for a refund, the customer service replied that "the unconditional refund has ended on October 10". "Isn't that the unconditional refund of tickets already over when the tickets are not on sale?After that, I kept contacting the platform and even making complaints**, but the customer service would only say perfunctory words to me. I strongly demand a full refund, it is my legitimate interest and I cannot condone such a rogue behavior. Li Li felt very "speechless".
The same happened to Zhou Xing in Shanghai. He once spent 1,280 yuan on the ticketing platform to buy pre-sale tickets for a certain singer's concert in Hefei. Half an hour after the payment, Zhou Xing found that his schedule had changed, so he immediately applied for a refund, but was reminded that he needed to deduct 20% of the handling fee.
was deducted a few hundred yuan in half an hour, Zhou Xing did not agree and applied for a full refund, but there has been no follow-up until now.
Many of the surveyed consumers said that some ticketing platforms publish ambiguous information, such as the "refund fee" on the page to mislead consumers into thinking that the full amount will be refunded, but in fact they are told that the refund is "deducted" or that the refund is charged a "handling fee".
Recently, the pre-sale and refund rules of Jay Chou's Fuzhou concert tickets have been "complained" by many netizens. For example, the pre-sale will start at 10 a.m. on December 9, 2023. The refund rules state that refunds from 10 a.m. on December 11, 2023 to 10 a.m. on May 9, 2024 will be charged a 30% handling fee for the order. In other words, a handling fee will be charged 48 hours after the ticket is purchased, but the concert is set in nearly half a year, how do we know if there will be other things scheduled at that time. Without considering the rights and interests of consumers, isn't it a little too ugly?Netizens posted to express their dissatisfaction.
In this regard, the ticketing platform replied: "Each project has its own ticket purchase rules and refund rules. The handling fee is the result of the final confirmation of multiple parties, and after the order is successfully placed, the specific ticket purchase rules and refund rules shall prevail. ”
Wu Jingming said that according to the consumer rights and interests protection and the "Measures for the Punishment of Infringement of Consumer Rights and Interests" and other laws and regulations, consumers' requests for repair, rework, replacement, return, make up the quantity of goods, refund of goods and service fees, or compensation for losses cannot be deliberately delayed or unreasonably refused.
Ma Lihong believes that for the problems reported by consumers such as the long pre-sale period and the unreasonable refund fee, the merchant must clearly inform the ticket sales interface and not play word games. Consumers should also integrate the ticketing information and consider their personal schedule before placing an order. If the merchant deliberately delays the refund time or unreasonably refuses to refund the ticket, in addition to the corresponding civil liability, other relevant laws and regulations have provisions on the punishment authority and punishment method, and the provisions of the laws and regulations shall be implementedWhere laws and regulations do not provide for it, the relevant administrative departments are to order corrections, and may be given a warning, confiscation of unlawful gains, and a fine of between 1 and 10 times the amount of unlawful gains, or where there are no unlawful gains, a fine of up to 500,000 RMB;where the circumstances are serious, order a suspension of business for rectification or revoke business licenses.
The ticketing market needs to be more regulated
What the relevant departments need to regulate is not the sales model of advance tickets, but the behavior of false publicity. Ma Lihong believes that if a business carries out false publicity, it will face civil and administrative liability, and if the circumstances seriously violate the criminal law, it should also be punished by the criminal law.
Talking about how to regulate online ticket advances, Wu Jingming said that if there is more common false propaganda and fraud in this marketing model, the market supervision department and the relevant industry authorities should exercise the law enforcement power to supervise and maintain the normal market order and the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. If the content of the promotion is exaggerated, the relevant provisions of the Advertising Law shall be applied to impose administrative penalties, including ordering the person to make corrections, imposing fines, or even suspending business for rectification. If this method has already infringed upon the lawful rights and interests of a large number of unspecified consumers and infringed upon the public interest, consumer organizations at or above the provincial level and procuratorates at all levels may initiate consumer civil public interest litigation in accordance with law.
So, how should consumers protect their rights after encountering problems with purchasing advance tickets?
Ma Lihong suggested that, first of all, consumers should keep the advertising content and their own purchase records promoted by the merchant in a timely manner, and keep the relevant evidence of "the goods are not on the board" in case of rights protection. Secondly, the ways that consumers can protect their rights include the following: first, directly find the merchant to protect their rights, and ask them to refund the ticket or compensate for the loss according to the actual situation;The second is to report complaints to the local market supervision and administration department;Third, a lawsuit can be filed in court. Either way, consumers need to be aware of evidence retention and preserve evidence.
Wu Jingming reminded that consumers should pay attention not to believe the propaganda of merchants, covet cheap and easy to pay, once deceived, through legal channels to protect their legitimate rights and interests, including complaints to consumer organizations and competent departments for mediation, if the amount of money defrauded is large or huge, you can also directly sue the court for punitive damages.
The names of the consumers interviewed in this article have been changed).
Editor in charge: Yue Wenyan.