Thursday, March 01, 2007

I hate itptickets.com

I've bought tickets on itptickets.com a couple of times already, and never ran into any problems with the website.

A couple of days ago, I wanted to buy tickets to the Russell Peters show in Dubai. Now for those of you who don't know Russell Peters, he's a Canadian stand-up comedian of Indian origin, and he's really funny. You can watch part of his act here.

Anyway, so Russell had a first show planned on March 11, which sold out within hours of tickets going on sale. I had completely forgotten about the show that day and did not buy any tickets. So when I was told that the show had sold out, I was disappointed.

Then, my brother tells me that a second show was added, and that tickets would go on sale at midnight that night. That was a couple of days ago.

So at 11:45, I was ready. I had my laptop in front of me, my credit card ready, I had logged in to itptickets.com, and I was refreshing the page every 5 minutes to make sure I'd be one of the first to buy my tickets.

At 12 o'clock, things went awry. The website started messing up, and it was extremely slow. I tried several times to purchase my tickets but couldn't get through to the payment page. I was trying to get front section tickets, but after 20 minutes of pointless tries, I get a message saying that front section tickets were sold out.

Okay, fine. Let's try back section tickets then. Again, I try, and try, and try some more. Finally, another 20 minutes later, as I was about to fall asleep on my laptop, I succeed in getting to the payment page. Hurrah!

I enter my credit card info, and proceed with the payment. I get a black message box informing me to wait while my credit card is verified, and that if I do not get a confirmation message, I should contact a person from ITP, and that I should NOT attempt to send the order through again.

I knew deep down that my purchase did not go through. But I decided to go to bed that night, with a glimmer of hope that the next day, I would be pleasantly surprised.

So the very next morning, I called ITP ticket's infoline. I call, and call, and call again, and all I get is a voice saying "all our representatives are currently busy, please leave a message and we will call you back"... only to be followed by another message saying "sorry, our mailbox is currently full".

Hmm...Finally, by around 2PM, I manage to speak to a human being. He very grudgingly takes my name and phone number, and says that he will investigate if my payment went through and will call me back.

No news.

I decide to call again today, and after several tries, I manage to speak to someone (I think it was the same grumpy person I spoke to the first time), and this time he confirms that my payment did not go through, and that I did not get any tickets.

He said that 8000 people were trying to access the site that day, and there were 1800 tickets on sale only.

He also said that they were trying to book a 3rd show, but that they were awaiting confirmation from Russell Peters, to see if he could do it. And that they would contact me if this was the case.

Anyway, I know that it's not all ITP's fault, and that the number of people trying to access their website at the same time would have wreaked havoc on any website, not just theirs...but still...I really really wanted some Russell Peters tickets :(

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

What happened with me is an exact image of what happened with you. with the exception is that when i entered my credit card number, the server would give a "time-out" error.

However, i believe that the main fault is itp.com's. Why? Because they allow anyone to purchase upto 15 tickets or more on one single transction. Blackmarket dealers used this obvious market need an went in and procured all the ticket. You can find them all over the net now selling you ticket for 12th of march for >600DH for a REAR SEATER! Imagen what the price of the front seats would be!!!

Jayne said...

I think ITP has got alot to answer for. I've also booked tickets online with them & had numerous problems - to the extent that I swore I would NEVER book another ticket through them. The "all our reps are busy" & 'full mailbox' on answerfone are chickenshit ways of not wanting to deal with a heap of irate customers, which they know they're going to get, because their website can't handle the traffic!

Hmph! she says, unfolds arms & climbs down from the soapbox.......

Crankyputz said...

Ahh RP....i remember the day when he was at Yuck Yucks and they were giving away tickets for free, now he is in Dubai and they selling tickets for a grand.....sucks about the website....buy the DVD cheaper and I hear its the same jokes...

Anonymous said...

Off topic question; in Feb 07 you posted a video by an Imam/Sheikh of the Shite branch of Islam. I would like to know the name of the person, if possible.

Unfortuneately, his name was covered by the translation captions of MEMRI.

Thank you,
Khaled

Dubai Sunshine said...

Hey Khaled
No idea what his name is...sorry. The video was forwarded to me.

BuJ said...

hello D.Sunshine,
sorry to hear about the itp.. but you'll be glad to know i uploaded 3 videos from Amy Winehouse's concert on my blog.. no need to sign in :)

Anonymous said...

Hi DS

Hes got another show on 18th , you can try your luck with that one.

Anonymous said...

Same thing happened to a friend of mine, she kept on calling later on and gave them an earful every time so it turns out that they are having 2 shows on the 18th, one for the public and one for the people who had mishaps as you did, not too sure they still have tickets for this show but try your luck you never know.
Regards,

Forsoothsayer said...

i saw russell peters three times! he is so cool!

Anonymous said...

you have just described my night that day down to the almost sleeping on the keyboard part. I also didn't get any tickets :(

Nifty said...

Please email me on annacwhitehouse@aol.com - I really want to feature you in Grazia magazine. Fab blog.

Smitha said...

hey does anyone know where i can get russell peters dvd in auh? my husband loves the guy and i anted to get a ouple of dvds for him