A woman who just wanted to go see the musical “Beetlejuice” found herself dealing with a customer service nightmare when Vivid Seats canceled her tickets—which she claims happened so they could resell them at a higher price.
LoLo (@sweetxnxlo) says she received a phone call last month from the company asking if she would be interested in switching the seats she had previously purchased for seats further back, receiving a store credit in return.
“They presented it like this—‘There’s been a change in the venue seating. If you agree to switch your seats to Row E, we’ll give you a $25 credit and you can have Row E instead of Row B,’” she recalls in the video. “And I was like, ‘Why would I wanna switch seats from my front row center to like, further back? I mean, my seat still exists?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, of course your seat still exists.’”
Lolo declined, explaining to them that she’s legally blind and needed to sit close in order to see the show. She confirmed at the end of the call that she still had her original tickets.
But over a week later, LoLo says she received an email from Vivid Seats in the middle of the night that someone had submitted her tickets for cancelation.
After multiple phone calls trying to get the situation sorted, the company insisted their hands were tied.
“There’s nothing else that we can do since we already fully refunded you and gave her $125 in store credit,” a customer rep says during a phone call LoLo uploaded to TikTok. “If the prices did go up and you’re not willing to pay more for the tickets, I definitely understand. You can try looking at other websites for something cheaper, but we’re not able to…issue any other type of refund or to pay the difference for the tickets.”
LoLo says that tickets comparable to the ones she originally bought were selling for $450 each at that point, two days prior to the show. She had paid roughly that much for both combined, as she made sure to buy them well in advance of the show.
“This feels like a bait-and-switch,” she tells the representative, who ultimately responds, “The prices going up is out of our control. They’re subject to change. We have that on our website.”
Vivid Seats also boasts “Tickets you can trust: 100 million sold, 100% Buyer Guarantee,” at the top of its homepage.
During the ten-minute phone call LoLo shared to TikTok, the customer service rep told her they couldn’t give her any additional credit, claimed her original seats did not exist, couldn’t help her get different seats, and insisted that no agent she spoke to on the phone would be able to escalate the situation to allow her to speak to someone higher up. The only thing it was suggested for her to do was purchase new tickets.
@sweetxnxlo @Vivid Seats is a #scam this is outrageous. They cancelled my tickets without my knowledge. They called me and said that the venue did a layout changed and asked me on October 19 if for a $25 credit that I would move further back, but never ever said once and I’m 100% positive. They never said that if I did not accept their offer that my tickets would be canceled in fact at the end of the call, I confirmed with them so my tickets for Orchestra Center, row b still exist and that is where I’m seated correct and they said yes so this is a scam. They have canceled my tickets and now the tickets are $425 apiece on vivid for the same section and they will do nothing for me. I’m literally legally blind and this is why I picked close tickets because I can’t see further back and they will only give me $125 credit for their screwup. @Ticketmaster @StubHub @BeetlejuiceBway @auditoriumtheatre #blind #customerservice #theft #ripoff ♬ original sound – LoLo
“That’s pretty convenient for you, because that means you’re going to get a markup of like 300%,” she points out.
The frustrated TikToker made it abundantly clear that she would be calling back again and again until something changed, sharing that she has worked similar jobs for other companies and understands the process.
While that didn’t immediately have an impact, she later uploaded a follow-up video to let people know Vivid Seats emailed her just a few minutes after the original TikTok was posted to offer a $495 credit for their website. Later, someone called her to help her purchase new tickets that weren’t quite as good as her original ones but were close enough.
“After the credit and purchasing the tickets, I ended up paying $83 out of pocket. They said that they gave me the $495 credit and then they said that they also gave me like, a discount on the tickets,” she says.
But LoLo was also frank in her disinterest in ever purchasing tickets through Vivid Seats again, blown away by how difficult it was to get them to fix the problem she believes they caused themselves.
“They took my tickets from me, and I bet when I go, I’m going to see people in that B row and know exactly what happened. They probably paid double for those tickets ‘cause Vivid decided to resell them at a higher price and make a higher profit. There’s really no other explanation than that,” she says. “I’m happy they ‘made it right.’ I mean, they caused the issue in the first place.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to LoLo via TikTok comment and Vivid Seats via their website’s media inquiry form.
Update 8:47am CT, Nov. 18, 2023:
In a statement to the Daily Dot, Vivid Seats disputed the allegation that the original order was canceled so that the tickets could be sold at a higher price, saying that the seats had been “replaced with the orchestra pit for the show.”
Vivid Seats emphasized that the tickers were not relisted, but “no longer existed” for the specific show.
“Vivid Seats is committed to providing the industry’s best ticket purchase experience and we regret that wasn’t the case in this situation,” a representative said. “We can confirm that we reached out to the customer a month ahead of the event to inform her of the issue with her selected seat, given the layout change, and offer alternative solutions as well as a discount. All of our confirmed orders are backed with a 100% Buyer Guarantee, and as such we have provided the customer a full refund as well as an additional credit for the inconvenience.”