NEC Box Office – not tickety boo

We were lucky enough (actually it was hard work on two computers and three phones) to get tickets for the White Stripes at the NEC. The concert was canceled because Meg White was anxious – no where near as anxious, I  bet, as I was to get my money back. So on the day the cancelation was announced I called up the box office to see how I got a refund.

I was expecting this to be complicated, I was expecting to have to go there, or send complex letters with instructions, a bus ticket belonging to my grandmother etc. I knew they’d keep the booking fee and the £3 delivery surcharge. So I was happily surprised to hear that they’d “automatically refund the cost to my card”. Great, responsible ticketing by a company influenced by Birmingham City Council within the meaning of Part V of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 – or so I thought.

A month is long enough to refund money I’d have thought (after all it really only takes a couple of minutes max), so when I checked my account yesterday to find the only IN transaction was my hardlyinflantionbusting wages I was a bit peeved. It turns out you have to send the tickets back to them before they’ll refund. Now they didn’t tell me this a month ago, and it isn’t anywhere on the tickets, nor is an address for any purpose.

Perhaps, and I’m surmising here, they think I might sneak into this non-existent gig  or maybe, just maybe they hope people won’t bother. Or forget, or lose the tickets, or have them ‘disappear in the post’.

As there’s no details easily found (to tell the truth I haven’t found them, I have been looking, but they may be there) on any of their websites here they are:

You have to post tickets for a refund to:

FAO: Customer Services
NEC Box Office Ltd,
PO Box 3348
Birmingham
B40 1NS

And with tickets the price they are these days, and the postal service in crisis, I’d go for registered post which at least offers a little insurance.

Tags: Birmingham, NEC, tickets