Recently, Ms. Bian from Changzhou, Jiangsu Province encountered a bad thing. She spent 1,590 yuan on Maoyan to grab a ticket to Jolin Tsai’s concert. After paying, she found that she had chosen the wrong concert and hurriedly applied for a refund. Unexpectedly, she was 50% handling fee is deducted.
Ms. Bian said that from the time she placed the order to applying for a refund, 795 yuan "evaporated" in less than a minute. She found the official customer service, but got the message that "there are rules and restrictions and cannot be refunded at will." reply.
She found us across provinces after seeing a previous report by the "Journalist Gang" of Chao News and Qianjiang Evening News about complaints about Maoyan refunds.
"My hands were too fast" when grabbing tickets
795 yuan "evaporated" in less than one minute
Ms. Bian is a loyal fan of Jolin Tsai. Recently, she learned that her idol was going to have a concert tour and started preparing early to grab tickets. After some understanding, she decided to go to Shanghai, which is closer to home, to attend the concert. The performance was on August 2.
Because of Jolin Tsai's high popularity, concert tickets are usually sold out soon after they go on sale. Therefore, Ms. Bian locked the sale time at noon on July 13 in advance and planned to grab the tickets as soon as it went on sale.
At 11:58 noon that day, Ms. Bian opened the Maoyan app and saw that there were still tickets left for the concert. She was very excited and immediately bought an in-field ticket for 1,590 yuan, which was also the highest ticket price for the concert.
“Because I wanted to grab tickets, I moved too fast and didn’t read the content carefully.” Ms. Bian just finished placing the order and found that she had booked the wrong show. She originally wanted to buy tickets for the Shanghai show on August 2, but accidentally I bought the concert in Hefei which will start on July 19th. Ms. Bian immediately clicked "Apply for a refund", and because she was anxious, she did not carefully read the refund prompts. Within one minute, she completed the entire process from ticket purchase to refund.
As a result, after such operations, Maoyan platform only refunded her 50% of the original ticket price, which is 795 yuan, and the rest was deducted in the name of "handling fee".
Photo provided by the interviewee on the refund page
"I was very unhappy at the time. I lost more than 700 yuan in less than a minute. I was very distressed." Ms. Bian found Maoyan official customer service to inquire whether the remaining amount could be refunded or cancelled. Refund. The other party said: "This (refund) is irreversible and cannot be revoked." "There are rules and restrictions, and there is no way to refund at will."
reporters found that according to the refund rules announced on the ticket purchase interface of the Maoyan app, Jolin Tsai Hefei station tickets will be refunded from 11:00 on July 13 to 24:00 on July 14. The refund fee is 50% of the ticket price.
Refund rules on Maoyan app
However, Ms. Bian believes that she purchased the ticket and refunded it in such a short period of time, which will not affect the secondary sales of the ticket at all, and it is a bit unfair to be deducted so much handling fee.
Is it reasonable to be charged a 50% handling fee for immediate refund?
?
In response to this matter, the reporter tried Maoyan for an interview, but was rejected.
If you cancel the order within a few minutes, you will be charged 50% of the fee. Is this reasonable? In fact, similar incidents often occur when consumers rush to buy tickets for celebrity concerts, and relevant departments have also issued notices in this regard.
In September 2023, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Standardized Management of Large-scale Commercial Performance Activities to Promote the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Performance Market" to provide guidance on the standardized management of large-scale commercial performance activities with more than 5,000 people. , clarified that "Performance organizers should establish a refund mechanism for large-scale performance events, set reasonable tiered refund fees, and protect the legitimate rights of ticket buyers to refund."
However, in actual implementation, many booking platforms still go their own way. So, how can consumers safeguard their rights? The reporter also consulted a lawyer.
Lawyer Shao Bin, founding partner and honorary director of Shanghai Bohe Hanshang (Hangzhou) Law Firm, said that rush to buy concert tickets often has time limits and the time cycle is extremely short.In fact, grabbing tickets is all about hand speed, so many ticket buyers have no time to understand the relevant rules on the platform in detail when buying tickets. The so-called rules of the platform are essentially in vain and have been suspected of infringing on consumers' right to know. Any consumption by consumers should follow the principle of voluntary equality, and platforms should allow consumers to make voluntary choices after clearly and in detail informing them of the consumption risks. Instead of using the system's time difference to obliterate consumers' right to know, when consumers discover that they have been charged a large amount or have their payments deducted, they use platform rules to avoid responsibility.
At the same time, the platform's charging of large refund fees also involves a rationality issue. Unreasonable fees are difficult to be supported legally. If consumers think there is a problem with platform charges, they can complain to the local market supervision department or file a lawsuit in court to request a refund of relevant fees.
Source: Chao News
