Attraction Tickets Direct - Personal Horror Story

[Sweets]

Originally Posted by Bill

Whenever I made the booking there was absolutely no problem with shipping to another address. I explained my reasons why.
The money was taken from my CC 1 week ago.
It was only yesterday there suddenly is a problem and ATD aren't giving me a clear reason#why.

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Bill, I understand your frustration to a point. Maybe the person taking your payment thought it was fine and wouldn't be a problem.

However, now ATD are advising you they need you to prove who you say you are and you can do this by supplying proof of address/ID so they can verify you are in fact the card holder. The utility bill. They will then be able to dispatch the tickets. They will be safe in the knowledge it's not a fraudulent transaction, and you will receive your tickets. Not a problem.

Now you don't appear to want to do that. Fair enough. But it is bank holiday and the refund may be a bit trickier but I'm sure it will be resolved. It would probably be quicker and less hassle to just provide the letter as requested. That's up to you if you'd prefer not to.

It *would* be a horror story if someone was fraudulently using your card to pay for things to be delivered to a different address and the company didn't request proof that they were the card holder, wouldn't it?

[fireball46]

I personally dont see the problem. Why not just email them a utility bill and your tickets will be sent out to you.
I would rather that a company goes through these procedures as it makes it harder for fraudsters.

[DisneyWannabe]

I agree with the OP that it has been handled badly from a Customer Service point of view.

ATD should have been clear that having the tickets delivered to an address other than the billing address may require the OP to prove that the transaction is legitimate, however they have led him to believe that all was well, and then dropped it on him that they actually require him to "jump through a few hoops" not at the time of order but a whole week after they taken the funds? (it does beg the question why a week later and not when processing the payment?)- BUT as the OP says have not clearly explained to him why.

We can all give an educated guess that it is fraud prevention (and good practice at that), but ATD are not communicating that to the OP and actually are compound the issue by also refusing to refund the card upon request. ATD have not sent the tickets so have nothing to lose by processing a refund (other than reputation the longer the issue goes on).

It seems the OP would have been happy to comply had ATD explained why they require him to provide further proof. Now the OP is frustrated and is vent this here.

[Floridarules]

Originally Posted by fireball46

I personally dont see the problem. Why not just email them a utility bill and your tickets will be sent out to you.
I would rather that a company goes through these procedures as it makes it harder for fraudsters.

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I understand because they could have taken payment from the card and then delivered to another person at a different address. From their pov, these tickets are real tickets and are therefore worth potentially thousands. Its the same when oredering a mobile phone.

They do not know customers and therefore do not know if the person ringing is the real owner of the card. Fair enough they should have asked you for evidence before payment but it might just have been an inexperienced person you spoke to.
Send in the utility bill(cant you scan it and email) then job done?

[mango66]

I asked at Florida Escapes a couple of yrs ago about sending tickets to a address different from mine, I generally work away & I wanted my mum to take them in for me, but they said it wasn,t possible to do that - so I guess its probably a rule they all use .. its sounds like the first person you dealt with didn't know the rules.

[Guest]

Well done ATD on working to prevent fraud. (and perhaps you can streamline your processes/comms a bit or reject different delivery addreses).

OP : you must lead a very simple and boring life if this is horror story. One wonders why you can't find the time in it to just email the utility bill...

[12randal]

Originally Posted by misterh

Well done ATD on working to prevent fraud. (and perhaps you can streamline your processes/comms a bit or reject different delivery addreses).

OP : you must lead a very simple and boring life if this is horror story. One wonders why you can't find the time in it to just email the utility bill...

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yes well done ATD for taking money and not sending tickets that is how you prevent fraud ! seriously !

[swiper]

I think people who take money for tickets should be fully versed on all terms and conditions.

If this is the policy all staff should know.

If you take the money you should send the tickets...
This was agreed by both party's. Plus the conditions were outlined by the buyer to why he was doing what he was.
ATD agreed to the conditions and took his money with no mention of terms!

Also why has it taken 1 week to then not send the tickets?

Think it's bad customer service all round, it's been handled very badly.

I'm sure if Bill had been given the TERMS AT SALE TIME he could have made a decision to go ahead (and forward bills ect)or go elsewhere for his tickets!

[cornishfrogboy]

I may be in a minority, but I applaud ATD for being cautious re card theft. As a retired D.C, I dealt with plenty of it. I do not find it unreasonable to want the billing address to match the delivery address and I believe that the request for a utility bill is a fair and simple way to resolve the ambiguity.

What is apparently missing is honest, plain talking from ATD and a seeming paralysis in their structure when it comes to making decisions/dealing with issues and complaints.

Many thousands of potential ticket purchasers use this site, will have been reading this thread and may have been deterred from using ATD. That is a shame as I personally have used them many times without issues. With their price match policy and in addition their very generous freebies, they should be one of the very first options considered.

With an average family making an average purchase of, say £2000 plus, whilst I appreciate that the profit margins on each purchase may be small as a percentage, such sales soon add up. This thread will undoubtably have cost ATD plenty of money and that was avoidable.

[g1970]

To be fair to ATD, I think this is probably to protect them/customers. Allowing shipping to a different address from where the card is registered makes it easy for credit card fraud.

I hope you get things resolved and the surprise goes to plan