Victim Location 48823
Total money lost $42
Type of a scam Online Purchase
On Sunday, September 25, 2016, I purchased tickets to Mama Mia through what apparently was a website for the Wharton Center in East Lansing, Michigan. The URL was whartoncenter.ticketoffices.com (The real Wharton Center box office URL is Whartoncenter.boxoffice.com). The address of the Wharton Center was listed at the top, along with information about the campus of Michigan State University, and it all seemed legit The listed price was $65.00/ticket, which seemed reasonable, as I regularly pay around that price for tickets to events at the Wharton. I entered my credit card info, and the site asked if I wanted event insurance. I clicked on "no" and then on "confirm order". Much to my surprise, my credit card was immediately billed $172.00. When I went back the next day to take a closer look at the site, I realized that I was dealing with a look-alike site. At the very top of the right side of the "confirm payment" page, in a small paragraph under photos of the Wharton Center, it stated that it was unaffiliated with the Wharton Center.
Naturally, when I called they refused to refund. And it is true that it does state on their payment page that they are a third party seller, and yes, I shouldn’t have trusted that I was dealing with the actual site. these are deceptive business practices, however.
My biggest complaint is that I was never informed of any service or "download fees" that would add up to more that $40.00. This was all just automatically added on after I clicked on "confirm payment". For perspective, the Wharton Center charges a $3.00 service fee. The customer service representative offered a partial refund of $20.00, which I declined to accept because I wanted to see if I could dispute the charge via my credit card, but that can’t be done before the event.
The tickets appear to be legitimate, or at least someone with the name on the tickets purchased them from the Wharton Center. I feel foolish for not checking that it was a third party seller, but I am upset that I was charged the extra fees without being informed.