Thursday, December 22, 2005
FIFA To Refund Some Ticket Fees
According to this, fees for the conditional ticket program will no longer be witheld. No word on the TST fees, and I haven't heard back from anyone I contacted regarding them. Maybe a Babelfish translated email?
Edit: I get results, baby! According to the Babelfish translation of this page, the TST-Series non-refundable fees have been negotiated down to only 10, 20, and 30 euros per ticket instead of the 20, 30, and 50 euros they were originally. Not perfectly to my satisfaction, but better than nothing, I suppose.
According to this, fees for the conditional ticket program will no longer be witheld. No word on the TST fees, and I haven't heard back from anyone I contacted regarding them. Maybe a Babelfish translated email?
Edit: I get results, baby! According to the Babelfish translation of this page, the TST-Series non-refundable fees have been negotiated down to only 10, 20, and 30 euros per ticket instead of the 20, 30, and 50 euros they were originally. Not perfectly to my satisfaction, but better than nothing, I suppose.
Monday, December 19, 2005
George Bush Doesn't Care About Anyone
Apparently, after careful consideration, not only does George Bush not care about black people, he also doesn't care about white people or rich people.
I don't blame Kanye, as all he had to go on was the media reports. But there is something completely broken with our media today. Yeah, this navel-gazing, set-the-record-straight stuff is nice and all, but when it comes over three months after the fact, when the conventional wisdom has already taken root, and when the majority of people who accept that conventional wisdom will not see these articles, it's a bit too little too late.
Apparently, after careful consideration, not only does George Bush not care about black people, he also doesn't care about white people or rich people.
I don't blame Kanye, as all he had to go on was the media reports. But there is something completely broken with our media today. Yeah, this navel-gazing, set-the-record-straight stuff is nice and all, but when it comes over three months after the fact, when the conventional wisdom has already taken root, and when the majority of people who accept that conventional wisdom will not see these articles, it's a bit too little too late.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
FIFA's Windfall
I wondered how much that 8+ million euro windfall (with negligible costs incurred to genereate it) would help FIFA's bottom line. I found their 2004 financial data here.
They reported a profit of 158 million Swiss Francs in 2004, which at current rates is 102 million Euros. Looks like that windfall from those fees will pad their 2005 numbers quite nicely. An >8% increase in revenues with no associated expenses will do wonders for your cashflow. It's no surprise they can project their equity to double in only two years.
I wondered how much that 8+ million euro windfall (with negligible costs incurred to genereate it) would help FIFA's bottom line. I found their 2004 financial data here.
They reported a profit of 158 million Swiss Francs in 2004, which at current rates is 102 million Euros. Looks like that windfall from those fees will pad their 2005 numbers quite nicely. An >8% increase in revenues with no associated expenses will do wonders for your cashflow. It's no surprise they can project their equity to double in only two years.
FIFA's Fantastic Fundraising Fees
Or, "I've Got Your Modalities Right Here!"
It appears that there is now a legal challenge to the way in which FIFA is running their conditional ticket program (in which I am currently participating). At issue are a) the fact that consumers have to pay to participate up front, with no guarantee of any tickets, which basically constitutes an interest free loan to FIFA, and b) there is a non-refundable fee of 5 euros to participate in the program.
These 60000 applications with a 5 euro fee seem like small potatoes, however, when compared with the World Cup's previous sales phase, which involved applications for Team-Specific Tickets. I'll go ahead and relate my own experience.
In May, I was successful in my application for the cheapest (149 euros each) team-specific series for me, my wife, Ron, and Dale. As this round was first-come, first-served, the website was extremely slow, and many of the teams certain to qualify (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, etc.) were already sold out. The best team we could get tickets for after numerous attempts wa Zambia, which was tied for the lead (with Togo and Senegal) in its group at that time.
My friends and I were well aware theat there would be a 20 euro service charge incurred if Zambia failed to qualify, as is stated in response to question four here. (Note: Our tickets were of the TST-3 variety). Zambia ultimately failed to qualify, and last week I received my refund. Unfortunately, the euro is down about 10% against the dollar since May, so I knew we'd take a hit simply due to the exchange rate. I wasn't prepared for just how big the hit we'd take from the fees.
In May, I was charged 621 euros (for 4 tickets at 149 each, plus a 25 euro shipping fee). This came out to $823US at the time. Last week, I received $640US, or only 541 euros in return, over 22% less than I paid. Apparently the 20 euro fee mentioned in the FAQ applied not to the entire order, but to each person in the order. This meant our total fee was the 80 euros I was short. Needless to say, I was a bit upset, and I contacted FIFA stating that a) their website did not make it clear that the change applied to each person, and b) that I believed the charges were excessive. I requested a 60 euro refund. Below are my letter and their response.
As to their claim that the website made clear what the fees were, knowing what I know now and being forgiving, one could argue that the FAQ is explicit in that the charges apply to every person, and every order. However, I read that FAQ many times prior to this experience and it remained unclear. I suppose I could just be slow, so I'll leave it up to the reader to decide for themselves. As for FIFA's claim that charging a fee to every person on an order instead of on the order itself somehow results in lower fees: Huh? How so? Wouldn't a scheme in which each order were charged 20 euros lower the total amount of fees collected? The rationalization that charging everyone 20 euros is somehow the only "fair" method is hilarious as well. Note that there is no connection as to what costs were incurred by FIFA to refund money (which would be on a per-order basis). No, they'll charge everybody the same ridiculous fee, in the name of "fairness."
For grins, I ran some numbers on what FIFA might have made off this scheme. In May, there were 111 teams still playing qualifying matches for WC2006. 32 ultimately qualified, meaning 79 did not. Based on what we saw during our ticket-buying frenzy, it's a conservative assumption that around 40 of those teams sold out their allocation. Further, there were probably around 10000 tickets available per team, which seems reasonable. We'll assume, for simplicity, that everyone bought the cheap series of tickets (149 euros each), and incurred the cheap fees (20 euros each ticket).
First, we'll tackle the interest free loan we whose teams failed to qualify provided to FIFA. 40 X 10000 X 149 is nearly 60 million euros. Assume a nominal interest rate of 2% in Germany, and FIFA made 700,000 euros, and more if they were smart and invested in higher yielding, dollar-denominated assets. I'd like a 60 million euro interest-free loan for 7 months. It's a sweet deal. But at least that part was expected.
Next, we'll look at the fees FIFA collected, which I think were widely unexpected. 40 x 10000 x 20 = 8 million euros. FIFA pocketed somewhere north of 8 million euros (probably quite a bit more, as I'm sure some people bought the more expensive higher tiers, and thus incurred higher fees), all while providing nothing in return. Not bad work, really.
So, in summary I provided FIFA with an interest free loan for 7 months (which doesn't really bother me), that loan was denominated in euros, which resulted in a 10% loss in value (which doesn't really bother me), and was then charged a 13% fee to get my money back (which really bothers me). In return, I got nothing. I had thought that Ticketmaster was a nice racket, but at least you actually get the tickets with them (and their fees are per-order!).
I'm less than pleased, and this may have soured me on going to the World Cup in general, which would be Germany's loss. I have contacted Which?, a British consumer group that earlier had won European consumers the right to pay for tickets from their bank accounts rather than use MasterCard, and got reimbursement for bank charges. I also emailed VZBV, the German consumer group protesting the condtional ticket program. I will be emailing some EU politicians shortly. We'll see what happens.
Or, "I've Got Your Modalities Right Here!"
It appears that there is now a legal challenge to the way in which FIFA is running their conditional ticket program (in which I am currently participating). At issue are a) the fact that consumers have to pay to participate up front, with no guarantee of any tickets, which basically constitutes an interest free loan to FIFA, and b) there is a non-refundable fee of 5 euros to participate in the program.
These 60000 applications with a 5 euro fee seem like small potatoes, however, when compared with the World Cup's previous sales phase, which involved applications for Team-Specific Tickets. I'll go ahead and relate my own experience.
In May, I was successful in my application for the cheapest (149 euros each) team-specific series for me, my wife, Ron, and Dale. As this round was first-come, first-served, the website was extremely slow, and many of the teams certain to qualify (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, etc.) were already sold out. The best team we could get tickets for after numerous attempts wa Zambia, which was tied for the lead (with Togo and Senegal) in its group at that time.
My friends and I were well aware theat there would be a 20 euro service charge incurred if Zambia failed to qualify, as is stated in response to question four here. (Note: Our tickets were of the TST-3 variety). Zambia ultimately failed to qualify, and last week I received my refund. Unfortunately, the euro is down about 10% against the dollar since May, so I knew we'd take a hit simply due to the exchange rate. I wasn't prepared for just how big the hit we'd take from the fees.
In May, I was charged 621 euros (for 4 tickets at 149 each, plus a 25 euro shipping fee). This came out to $823US at the time. Last week, I received $640US, or only 541 euros in return, over 22% less than I paid. Apparently the 20 euro fee mentioned in the FAQ applied not to the entire order, but to each person in the order. This meant our total fee was the 80 euros I was short. Needless to say, I was a bit upset, and I contacted FIFA stating that a) their website did not make it clear that the change applied to each person, and b) that I believed the charges were excessive. I requested a 60 euro refund. Below are my letter and their response.
Hello,
In May, I purchased a TST for me and 3 friends for Zambia. Zambia failed to qualify, and I have just received my reimbursement for the tickets.
However, that reimbursement was for decidedly less money than I was expecting. It appears that the "non-refundable" part of the TST was witheld for each person in the order, making the "non-refundable" amount a total of 80 euros, rather than the twenty euros that I expected. This was not what the website led me to believe would happen. I was under the impression that only 20 euros would be witheld from the entire order, and the website did not make explicit that the non-refundable charge applied to each person in the order.
I sincerely hope this is a simple mistake. If this is not a mistake, I will be very disappointed. With currency fluctuations, this means that I will have paid nearly $200US (or nearly 25% of the original order) for nothing, and FIFA will have accrued interest on my money for 6 months, and then have taken another 80 euro off the top, all while providing me nothing more than a chance at tickets in return. That is an unacceptable situation.
These ticket charges are beyond excessive, and I would like to be refunded an additional 60 euros. Please inform me if this is possible.
Cheers,
Dear Mr. Williams,First off, the use of the word "modality" is just perfect bureaucratic gobbledygook.
thank you for your query.
As your team has not qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany (TM) the TST reserved for you expired and we initiated the refund of your order amount. Please note that the price of the TST series has been paid back minus the non-refundable part of the TST service charge.
That a service fee will be charged was clearly communicated in the ticket shop. These modalities are also explained in detail in the FAQs on www.FIFAworldcup.com. These modalities were accepted by you when you confirmed your order.
The service fee is not charged per order, as this would have resulted in noticeably higher fees. With a percentage based scaling a customer ordering for one person only would have been charged significantly more than a customer ordering for four persons. A service fee charged per person has been chosen in order to avoid such an unequal treatment.
Yours sincerely
Your 2006 FIFA World Cup (TM) Ticketing Center
As to their claim that the website made clear what the fees were, knowing what I know now and being forgiving, one could argue that the FAQ is explicit in that the charges apply to every person, and every order. However, I read that FAQ many times prior to this experience and it remained unclear. I suppose I could just be slow, so I'll leave it up to the reader to decide for themselves. As for FIFA's claim that charging a fee to every person on an order instead of on the order itself somehow results in lower fees: Huh? How so? Wouldn't a scheme in which each order were charged 20 euros lower the total amount of fees collected? The rationalization that charging everyone 20 euros is somehow the only "fair" method is hilarious as well. Note that there is no connection as to what costs were incurred by FIFA to refund money (which would be on a per-order basis). No, they'll charge everybody the same ridiculous fee, in the name of "fairness."
For grins, I ran some numbers on what FIFA might have made off this scheme. In May, there were 111 teams still playing qualifying matches for WC2006. 32 ultimately qualified, meaning 79 did not. Based on what we saw during our ticket-buying frenzy, it's a conservative assumption that around 40 of those teams sold out their allocation. Further, there were probably around 10000 tickets available per team, which seems reasonable. We'll assume, for simplicity, that everyone bought the cheap series of tickets (149 euros each), and incurred the cheap fees (20 euros each ticket).
First, we'll tackle the interest free loan we whose teams failed to qualify provided to FIFA. 40 X 10000 X 149 is nearly 60 million euros. Assume a nominal interest rate of 2% in Germany, and FIFA made 700,000 euros, and more if they were smart and invested in higher yielding, dollar-denominated assets. I'd like a 60 million euro interest-free loan for 7 months. It's a sweet deal. But at least that part was expected.
Next, we'll look at the fees FIFA collected, which I think were widely unexpected. 40 x 10000 x 20 = 8 million euros. FIFA pocketed somewhere north of 8 million euros (probably quite a bit more, as I'm sure some people bought the more expensive higher tiers, and thus incurred higher fees), all while providing nothing in return. Not bad work, really.
So, in summary I provided FIFA with an interest free loan for 7 months (which doesn't really bother me), that loan was denominated in euros, which resulted in a 10% loss in value (which doesn't really bother me), and was then charged a 13% fee to get my money back (which really bothers me). In return, I got nothing. I had thought that Ticketmaster was a nice racket, but at least you actually get the tickets with them (and their fees are per-order!).
I'm less than pleased, and this may have soured me on going to the World Cup in general, which would be Germany's loss. I have contacted Which?, a British consumer group that earlier had won European consumers the right to pay for tickets from their bank accounts rather than use MasterCard, and got reimbursement for bank charges. I also emailed VZBV, the German consumer group protesting the condtional ticket program. I will be emailing some EU politicians shortly. We'll see what happens.
