Thursday, August 14, 2008

Ticket Schumozzle

TICKETS? WE DON’T HAVE YOUR STINKIN’ GRAND PRIX TICKETS!

On my past trip to Der Fatherland, I learned a very important lesson, which I suppose many of you already know about... That obviously you get what you pay for, as I attempted playing Grand Prix travel guide for myself in lieu of going with Grand Prix Tours, who are an excellent company, just a bit on the high side in terms of pricing.

Thus having decided to attend this year’s German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring, obviously I needed to secure all of the nefarious items, i.e.; air fare, lodging and Grand Prix tickets. Thus I attempted to purchase my race tickets via le internets thru grandprix-tickets... Of which a funny thing happened, I suppose in the OVER-HYPED world ‘O FEAR! As my credit card purchase was denied and startlingly the telephone rang just moments after trying to make the purchase... As my esteemed credit card’s security division (Ja Volt! Wezs hazs wazes...) was calling me to say that somebody was trying to purchase GP Tickets from an overseas vendor; Uh-DUH!

You know how ‘dem wood-be Terrorists may be tryin’ to go on Holiday in-between bombing jobs, eh?

Thus I was assured that my purchase would go thru upon my second attempt of booking the race tickets from said internets vendor... But, here’s where things get strange and the two OFFENDING parties are still playing the “Good Cop vs. Bad Cop” routine, of which I’ve NOT experienced since dealing with my former employer and its representative in$urance company...

As my ticket purchase was now confirmed via F1-GPT instead of grandprix-tickets, to which I paid no special interest to.

Having confirmed my racing tickets purchase in early February, four+ months prior to the event, July seemed like a very long time away, eh? Yet, in mid-June I decided to enquire about when exactly I’d be receiving my Grand Prix tickets? Of which Robert of the Sales department of F1-GPT replied that the tickets would be mailed to my home address 2-3 weeks prior to the race event, of which sent mild alarms of concern in me as we’d be departing two weeks prior to the race in order to acclimatize ourselves to the German time zone, which is +9hrs for us.

Thus I sent a reply email to Robert informing him of the exact date we’d be leaving for Germany and my concerns regarding ticket delivery, needing the tickets to arrive at my domicile by NO later then +16 days prior to the Hockenheim race... To which Robert replied; “When do you leave?”

So I shot back Robert another email, this time with my departure date in BOLD CAPITALIZED letters and Robert simply replied; “Send me the Colone address.” And then promised that they’d arrive in Colone Germany on the day PRIOR to our arrival in Germany... Yeah, you’re probably getting way ahead of me, but guess what? HA-HA! NO GP tickets when we finally arrived in Colone that Wednesday evening, (July 9th) of which then began a chain reaction of several email inquiries to Robert regarding where in the HELL are our FRILLIN’ Grand Prix Tickets... (YOU BASTARDOES!) As of course each day passed in Germany with NO racing tickets delivery.

And adding insult to injury, it appears that we received a tracking number which showed that the tickets had stopped in Colone before continuing onto Seattle, WA! As it was now just nine, or was that mien dazes ‘til the Hockenheim race and still NO race tickets and therefore we’d yet to purchase our train tickets... Thus we were forced to go into semi-panic mode as I volunteered Mi Madre to drive out to my Apartment complex after having called them to explain the situation and give her permission to retrieve my mail... Of which gratefully she did and then preceded to priority mail them to us...

Meanwhile, somewhat confident that the tickets would arrive, Claire & I decided to head off to Paris for two nights while awaiting the FedEx delivery... But, Oh NO! Although the FedEx goons were more then happy to leave my very expensive (multiple hundred dollars) piece of specialized Zoomtext software outside the door of my apartment, they weren’t allowed to leave it in our hosts mailbox in Colone. And thus Vladi had to telephone them, saying he’d leave written permission to leave the item in said mailbox the following day...

And thus our Grand Prix tickets were FINALLY delivered on Thursday, *July 17th; Just-in-Time) one day prior to our departure for the Hockenheimring!

Since my return, I’ve emailed both Grand Prix-Tickets and F1-GPT MULTIPLE times... And you guessed it! “Its NOT OUR COMPANIES FAULT...” Why, NO, it’s the other parties fault and they’re NOT responsible for my ticket schumozzle... Of which all I’m seeking is re-imbursement of the $50.00 FedEx overnight mailing fee I incurred... As Robert of F1-GPT assured me that the tickets would be mailed to Colone two weeks prior to the race and then FAILED to deliver upon his promise. Hence, since neither of these BASTARDOES will fess-up, as F1-GPT will NOT even reply to my email inquiries and grandprix-tickets have become increasingly RUDER with each email reply...

Therefore, obviously I will NEVER do business with them again! And strongly suggest that you watch your back if you so desire to do business with these companies...