Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Madferret62 on June 07, 2015, 10:00:08 AM
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So, season ticket prices frozen, hang on "Season ticket renewal activation fee", "Transaction fee"??? The former is utterly ludicrous, the latter vaguely justifiable. Given the billions that are going into the game via Sky/BT shouldn't prices be coming down in real terms?
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No transaction fees are justifiable. You don't have to pay extra to buy anything else and tickets should be no different.
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Transaction fees are bad enough, but at least they are an actual thing - 'season ticket activation fee' is actual piss taking!
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ST's have had a 5% 'invisible' increase in reality.
Last season I had 10% cash back in Villacash which equated to about £60. This paid for a villa Shirt with a bit left over.
This time it's only 5% in Villacash.
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So let's get this right, you pay several hundred quid for a season ticket but for it to be activated to get you into the ground you have to pay extra?
Has Michael O'Leary taken us over?
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How much is the activation fee?
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No transaction fees are justifiable. You don't have to pay extra to buy anything else and tickets should be no different.
I've never understood why you should have to pay extra to somebody for them selling something to you. The box office I work in has never added any kind of transaction fee/service charge etc unless you book online, in which case it's £1.75, whether you buy 1 ticket or 100, the only reason we charge is people asked for the option to book online and it is to cover the cost of the service.
We took over the booking for a venue that used to charge 10% whenever paying by card (debit or credit), somebody bought ten tickets for Elvis Costello which were £42.50 and in the past it would have been the price of another ticket on top, they were pleasantly surprised that it only £425.00!
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£2 apparently - I don't recall being charged anything myself but someone has said it on another thread. Maybe its a thing for new ST holders? I know £2 isn't a lot of money, but it is somehow still just a bit crap. An unnecessary wind up I think.
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Stuff like this never ceases to amaze me. If collecting an extra £2 or £5 or whatever is so critical to the success of the business, then just add it into the price of the ticket in the first place.
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These fees always strike me as the very definition of "Because we can".
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A mate once did a breakdown of a concert ticket which was
Ticket: £20
Fantasy Charge: £2
Additional Pisstake: £3
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£2 apparently - I don't recall being charged anything myself but someone has said it on another thread. Maybe its a thing for new ST holders? I know £2 isn't a lot of money, but it is somehow still just a bit crap. An unnecessary wind up I think.
Nope, renewed yesterday and the charge appeared in my 'basket'.
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I was once booking tickets for a gig and on top of the transaction fee there was a charge of £4.50 to have the tickets posted so I selected the collect at the box office option, then noticed it was also £4.50 to collect at the box office. I didn't bother booking.
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"Let's screw an extra £2 out of our
loyal fans gullible customers"
I wouldn't pay it out of principal. Fees for tickets are a total ripoff. Annoys me that I can go in the shop in town, go upstairs and buy some merchandise and pay by card, no fees. Go a few feet to the side and buy a ticket behind the same counter with the same card, and have to pay fees. As Dave says, it's because they can. Good to see the extra TV deal money being passed on to the fans.
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I nearly cancelled my ticket renewal yesterday when the fee was added. Just ludicrous.. and nearly was the final straw, I had already left it weeks longer to renew than normal
Transaction Fee
Transaction Fee £2.00
Season Ticket Renewal Activation
Season Ticket Renewal Activation £2.00
Basket Total £594.00
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Is the activation fee an online thing only? I renewed by phone on Friday and it wasn't mentioned and the final amount doesn't indicate that I was charged it.
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There's really no justification for this sort of shit.
As Risso said, if that sort of amount is really crucial to our income, just add it to the price of the tickets rather than do this sort of thing which just makes people resent them and think they're being ripped off.
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*runs off to find tweet sent to @AVFCOfficial (no reply was forthcoming) re. P&P charges when purchasing items from online shop*
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Didn't they add some sort of spurious charge to season tickets a few years ago, only to back down when people pointed out they were taking the piss?
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Didn't they add some sort of spurious charge to season tickets a few years ago, only to back down when people pointed out they were taking the piss?
£2 fee for ST or match tickets even if you paid cash.
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".@AVFCOfficial online shop: 2 FA Cup t-shirts & a hoodie = £48. P&P to France = £15. One FA cup t-shirt = £12. P&P still £15. Shameful."
The P&P for one T-shirt is greater than the cost of the T-shirt. Great way to develop overseas sales of Villa tat.
My mother got me a T-shirt and sent it over for under £3.00. There is allowing the company who runs Villa's online sales to make some money, and there is allowing them to attempt to sodomise us without any lubricant.
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You can't blame the club for international postage costs!
Whats the P&P if sent within UK?
edit: I'm not even going to try to justify excessive P&P costs but you will find most companies have contracts with delivery companies and charge set fees per transaction rather than how many items you buy (only exception to this would be a substantial increase in size or weight). I'm sure they could reduce the costs if they negotiated a better deal with any contracts for international deliveries, however if you are right and they are making additional profit on international delivery charges then that may be worth raising as an issue to the club.
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After the absolute fucking dross Lerner and his chimps have served up over the past five years, you'd think they'd be looking at ways to entice supporters back.
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Even if sent surface a t-shirt would be at least £3.75 to send to France, and that would need it to be under 250g. Realistically it will be £5.50 airmail assuming it weighs between 251g-500g.
Villa site charges a flat rate for shipping, so for one item it will be expensive, for a few it becomes a lot better value for money.
Obviously the above prices are Royal Mail counter prices, the Villa may use a different courier, which with tracking abroad will be higher anyway.
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The Villa online shop charged £5 to send one T-shirt to Water Orton. My mother then sent it on (probably for £3.75 as PWS wrote). This beats the £12 + £15 p&p charge (flat-rate up to a certain weight)
Yes, I know they offer free delivery worldwide in orders over £100. But I don't want to spend £100 on tat in one go.
I only wanted a frigging FA Cup T-shirt. £15 is a gigantic fucking piss-take and not "international postage costs" as KRS said.
A reasonable charge could see me and others buying more tat over a season. It is not rocket science.
Edit. My T-shirt weighs precisely 217g. Add on a plastic bag and call it 250g.
Piss-take.
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The problem they have is the variety of items they sell on the site. Unless they put quite a complex shipping system on the site, they have to go with a flat rate, and so as they don't lose money they will go for a higher rate. As an example BE could order a t-shirt that weighs 300g, his neighbour could order a benchcoat that weighs 1800g. One Costs £5.50 to post through RM, the other costs £13.46, £16.96 if you want it insured for more than £20 value.
Not saying it's right someone can stiffed for so much P&P for a t-shirt, but I can understand why they have the system they use in place.
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I understand it but I find the system in place to be unfair. If other online vendors can find ways of selling stuff with reasonable P&P then it would be nice if Villa could encourage the company that runs the online shop (it is not run by AVFC) to find ways of encouraging me to spend money more regularly without the onslaught of cognitive dissonance and sharp rectal pains.
I don't want to detract from the fantasy fee issue that is at the heart of this thread but felt that my P&P gripe was worth a moan. :-)
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Fees are fees at the end of the day BE. I rarely find online shops have free P&P (usually a minimum spend, special offer or discount code if it is) but they are generally quite reasonable where they do charge, so a complaint to the club about the P&P costs of the third party vendor would be the best way to approach this.
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Robbing an extra £4 out of loyal fans.
I didn't technically renew my ST this year as I'm sitting somewhere else in the ground, which meant I didn't have to pay a transaction fee or renewal fee, which goes to show they don't need to charge either.
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I don't like it either. You're not actually booking anything, you're paying for it so a booking fee shouldn't really apply.
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Robbing an extra £4 out of loyal fans.
I didn't technically renew my ST this year as I'm sitting somewhere else in the ground, which meant I didn't have to pay a transaction fee or renewal fee, which goes to show they don't need to charge either.
Does this make new season tickets cheaper than renewals?
Surely that can't possibly be so.
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I've renewed and didn't pay any fees
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My main gripe is paying the club to buy something off them is just wrong (my northerness magnifies this masively!!). AVFC have just benefitted hugely from an increase inTV revenue so increases in ST prices, fees or any other charges are simply unjustifiable.
Why on earth do they outsource the online operation- crazy!
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- 'season ticket activation fee' is actual piss taking!
Wow...that had passed me by. how much is that?
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- 'season ticket activation fee' is actual piss taking!
Wow...that had passed me by. how much is that?
Two quid.
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Or 'five seconds' work' as we lawyers also call it.
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I've gone to London to buy tickets for shows in person, and made a day out of it, rather than pay transaction fees for shows. Yes, I know travel costs have been incurred but these fees really piss me off. I've posted in OT tonight about Ryanair charging someone £220 to make a change to a booking - he changed his name by deed poll and got a new passport for a cost of £103. Ryanair did come up with a justification for charging £220, but then they would.
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I don't think I paid that. Mine was 430 ST+160 JST+2 transaction fee=592 I paid. T fee is bollox. Good job I don't have to pay that every time I fuel the car or at supermarket check out.
However 590 was a 5% actual rise on last season due to 10% discount being dropped to 5%.
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And you still can't join or even renew the Cup Scheme online...
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I was thinking though Richard 592 will buy me almost 25 minutes with you!
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I was thinking though Richard 592 will buy me almost 25 minutes with you!
Cheap at half the price, I assure you!
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If you don't like the fees choose the finance plans as I have done the 9 month 0% interest plan and I haven't been charged either a transaction fee or activation fee.
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I renewed 4 tickets on the 'phone yesterday lunchtime, costing over £2k, and was a little surprised when the lady said there was a £2 fee. If it hadn't been a very pleasant lady who has been working in the ticket office for many years I'd have probably had a moan.
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If you don't like the fees choose the finance plans as I have done the 9 month 0% interest plan and I haven't been charged either a transaction fee or activation fee.
Why should you have to choose anything in order to avoid an unnecessary charge?
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If you don't like the fees choose the finance plans as I have done the 9 month 0% interest plan and I haven't been charged either a transaction fee or activation fee.
Did that, admittedly online, and got charged both.
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If you don't like the fees choose the finance plans as I have done the 9 month 0% interest plan and I haven't been charged either a transaction fee or activation fee.
Did that, admittedly online, and got charged both.
That's weird as I looked at the invoice and I didn't get charged.
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If you don't like the fees choose the finance plans as I have done the 9 month 0% interest plan and I haven't been charged either a transaction fee or activation fee.
Why should you have to choose anything in order to avoid an unnecessary charge?
You shouldn't but that's the way it is sadly so it's a case of 3 options: 1) pay in full with the Fee added on 2) 9 month interest free with no Fee and 3) don't buy a season ticket.
It's wrong but no amount of moaning is going to make it go away.
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My renewal was done using the 9 month credit option and was charged the "activation fee" and transaction fee
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If you don't like the fees choose the finance plans as I have done the 9 month 0% interest plan and I haven't been charged either a transaction fee or activation fee.
Why should you have to choose anything in order to avoid an unnecessary charge?
You shouldn't but that's the way it is sadly so it's a case of 3 options: 1) pay in full with the Fee added on 2) 9 month interest free with no Fee and 3) don't buy a season ticket.
It's wrong but no amount of moaning is going to make it go away.
Not necessarily. That £2 booking fee was scrapped last season because enough of us complained.
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I think that was only for cash purchases Dave. You still get stiffed £2 when paying by card.
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If you don't like the fees choose the finance plans as I have done the 9 month 0% interest plan and I haven't been charged either a transaction fee or activation fee.
Why should you have to choose anything in order to avoid an unnecessary charge?
You shouldn't but that's the way it is sadly so it's a case of 3 options: 1) pay in full with the Fee added on 2) 9 month interest free with no Fee and 3) don't buy a season ticket.
It's wrong but no amount of moaning is going to make it go away.
Not necessarily. That £2 booking fee was scrapped last season because enough of us complained.
Very strange I've checked several times now and I haven't been charged either. Maybe you don't get charged either if you've been a season ticket holder for many years.
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When renewing my ST I was charged £2 transaction fee and would have been charged another £2 as a card fee if I didnt pay cash.
As someone else mentioned I very nearly scrapped the purchase for that couple of quid, blatant piss take of the fans the club should really be looking after.
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....or put another way, why do they need to add charges when you are paying the full amount, when they can manage not to when they are setting up a finance plan?
I didn't incur charges because I got the finance plan, and if I had, £4 was hardly going to break the bank when I was already spending £430, but bizarre little charges like this are an irritation when the club need not to be irritating.
My season ticket has been the same price for about 5 years now, it really shouldn't be beyond them to be able to put a positive spin on that, even if they did have to put it up by £5, but a £2 drip drip landing on top just feels like wringing every last penny out of you.
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Hang on a second, I thought this was just about the £2 card charge. What's this 'activation fee'?
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Hang on a second, I thought this was just about the £2 card charge. What's this 'activation fee'?
The other £2 you get screwed for on renewal.
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I renewed by credit card over the phone and 'only' got stung £2 transaction charge. No 'activation' fee
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Robbing an extra £4 out of loyal fans.
I didn't technically renew my ST this year as I'm sitting somewhere else in the ground, which meant I didn't have to pay a transaction fee or renewal fee, which goes to show they don't need to charge either.
Does this make new season tickets cheaper than renewals?
Surely that can't possibly be so.
Bizarrely this is the case. You avoid the 'renewal fee' if you are a first time buyer. Not sure why I didn't get charged the transaction fee though, as I paid on credit card online, maybe this only applies to debit cards or certain cards?
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I renewed on Saturday over the phone and paying over nine months and there's no sign of being charged either the transaction or renewal fee. The irony being, I only phoned up as the ticket office in town was closed and I was going to do it in person which I'm sure would have probably seen me having to pay the extra.
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I was only charged the £2.00 card fee (debit card) which I reluctantly payed. We'd be reverting back to cash if every card sale commanded this fee. I know the Ryanairs of this world charge £5.00 for credit card transactions but no charge for debit card. Why do the club feel it acceptable to make a charge for all card transactions? I can understand a charge for credit card fees but debit transaction doesn't carry a fee..or does it?
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I was only charged the £2.00 card fee (debit card) which I reluctantly payed. We'd be reverting back to cash if every card sale commanded this fee. I know the Ryanairs of this world charge £5.00 for credit card transactions but no charge for debit card. Why do the club feel it acceptable to make a charge for all card transactions? I can understand a charge for credit card fees but debit transaction doesn't carry a fee..or does it?
20p per transaction for my machine.
Seems there has been a lot of different interpretations of their own rules, I paid cash and the £2 renewal fee.
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Robbing an extra £4 out of loyal fans.
I didn't technically renew my ST this year as I'm sitting somewhere else in the ground, which meant I didn't have to pay a transaction fee or renewal fee, which goes to show they don't need to charge either.
Does this make new season tickets cheaper than renewals?
Surely that can't possibly be so.
Bizarrely this is the case. You avoid the 'renewal fee' if you are a first time buyer. Not sure why I didn't get charged the transaction fee though, as I paid on credit card online, maybe this only applies to debit cards or certain cards?
Not true I've been a season ticket holder since 1998 and I didn't get any renewal fee or activation fee