Wednesday, September 24, 2008
DEAR METS TICKETING OFFICE.
Dear MTO,
I am writing to you, my dear friends, to express my extreme displeasure with the manner in which you are handling shipping of the 2008 Playoff Tickets.
While all parcel delivery services in New York City suck with equal fervor, now that MLB has entered into a “strategic partnership” with DHL, we are forced to endure their special brand of ineptitude in order to receive our 2008 Playoff Tickets. Last year’s idiocy had me crying openly in Hell’s Kitchen while I tried to track down my tickets (tickets which, I’ll point out, I NEVER GOT TO USE).
This year, however, you have achieved a new paradigm of we-don’t-give-a-f-about-our-fans-ness.
I received the email this morning alerting me to the fact that the tickets had been shipped. Of course, it didn’t actually say that, I had to decipher the message to find a word that was close to “Mets,” and that combined with the fact that I just happen to know that the ticket printer for the playoffs is located in Arkansas (that’s TBF’s fault) - but that’s another story. Given that I, like a large amount of Mets ticketholders, don’t live in a mansion, a doorman building, or have neighbors who are home all day, shipping my tickets to my home address presents a real problem. This is why I, like a large percentage of New York City residents, have all my packages shipped to my work address. (And before you say, “Why not pick it up at the delivery office,” in Brooklyn that mandates a run to the remotest corners of the borough in one’s own personal vehicle as these locations are nowhere near public transportation, and it’s always a nightmare for things less valuable than playoff tickets.)
This year, attempting to be proactive and prevent the bleeding, I made the phone call to DHL first thing this morning to have them reroute the package to my office. I do this all the time when I order something and don’t find out until after it shipped that it’s going via courier (USPS, shockingly, has no problem delivering packages to my building and getting them actually INSIDE THE BUILDING). However, this year, DHL informed me that they could not do that without a fax from the shipper authorizing them to do so.
Oh, joy.
When I phoned the MTO to speak to an ever-helpful ticket representative, his response was to cut me off mid-sentence and inform me that “This year, we’re not requiring a signature.” While it boggles the mind that you would send out packages worth several hundred to several thousand dollars and NOT REQUIRE A SIGNATURE, this of course in my neighborhood is an open invitation to theft. The delivery drivers in NYC do not care. They do not try to find a safe place to leave a package. They do not want to come back. They just want to get rid of their packages and get on with their route. This will mean lost playoff tickets for us for certain, and the last thing I am going to have time to do if the Mets, with the help of all deities, manage to make it into a playoff spot, is get on the phone and dicker with the eternally unhelpful and unfriendly recent Sports Marketing majors from Hofstra University who answer the phones at the MTO about where my f’ing tickets are and how you are going to replace them.
I managed to get someone who claimed they were going to fax in the request to reroute my tickets to my office. It remains to be seen if they will actually do this, or if I will be forced to take time off work to go chase my tickets around the city, like I did last year. TBF, however, is now being told that you will not do this, and that he can pick up his tickets at the delivery depot on Saturday… except for the fact that IT’S NOT OPEN ON SATURDAY.
Anywhere else I spent $758 I would be treated as a valued customer. Perhaps instead of hiring Sports Marketing graduates to work in Citi Field, you might consider hiring someone who has actual experience in actual CUSTOMER SERVICE. But that would mean that you would have to recognize that ticket buyers are, in fact, CUSTOMERS.
Sincerely, as ever,
MG
P.S. Let’s Go Mets!
I feel your pain. Got home yesterday to find a DHL sticker on the front door, saying tried to deliver, need signature, be back tomorrow.
Luckily, my LSH (long-suffering husband) had the day off He did have things to do and wasn’t planning hanging around the house waiting for DHL.Around noon, he went online to track the package, and, lo & behold, it said package was delivered. Great. Where? LSH calls DHL, “customer svc” rep happily tells him, oh, your pkg is delivered. Where? She proceeds to give an address two towns away with a street address in no way, shape or form similar to ours.
Then she says, if u don’t have it, it’s probably at your neighbors. LSH finally gets her to see that the ship-to address and where it was delivered were totally different. So she says she has to contact the driver to go back and pick up the pkg.
LSH hangs up and decides to investigate himself. He could see the signature of the person who signed and was able to find their phone#. Woman was very nice, but said she was told by the DHL guy the pkg was for her neighbor, so she signed for it and stuck it under their door, never looking at the name and address. DHL guy shows up while on phone and asks the woman for th pkg back. Woman explained story; the DHL guy had the nerve to ask her why she would sign for a package that wasn’t meant for that address!! What an A-hole. Anyway, nice woman took my LSH’s cell# and said she would give it to her neighbors. It’s almost 8PM and we have’t heard from anyone. BTW, LSH asked the woman if she knew if her neighbors were Mets fans. And she said “Oh, big time!” Great. I hope they’re also honest. If we don’t hear tonight, LSH will be going on an expedition tomorrow. All because the DHL guy can’t read.