The mystery of the missing Ticketmaster refund and the case of the cancelled concert tickets

The cancellation of a concert can be very disappointing, as fans of Céline Dion know all too well, but the disappointment is made considerably worse for those who struggle to get their money back.

Daniel had tickets to see the singer perform in Dublin next year, but she cancelled her tour citing ill health. Daniel was disappointed, but he figured his heart would go on and he would get his money back.

But there was a problem.

“Ticketmaster are telling me they refunded my old, expired AIB credit card on June 1st, 2023,” he writes. “AIB have told me on the phone that they have received no refund from Ticketmaster, [and] if they had received it on an old card they would have transferred it to new card.”

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He says “Ticketmaster are being of no assistance and keep sending me automated responses – will not send me the proof of payment back to my old card or let me know the card number it was sent to. AIB have requested this in order to look into it further.”

Daniel says the tickets were a hefty €388 and he’d like to have it back – sooner rather than later.

Then we heard from Fionnuala.

She and her mother had tickets to see The Chicks play in Dublin and were very excited. “We have been huge fans and couldn’t believe our luck when they decided to come to Ireland,” she writes. “Unfortunately my mum had to get spinal surgery after we bought the tickets and her mobility is quite limited now; she has difficulty with stairs etc and uses walking sticks,” she says.

“For this reason I contacted Ticketmaster asking if it was possible to change our tickets to accessible ones. To my horror I got a reply informing us that our tickets had been cancelled and a refund is being processed. I never asked for anything to be cancelled.”

She writes that after “much frantic e-mailing and two days of waiting I got another reply from them stating that as it’s a popular gig they can’t reissue the tickets but if we keep an eye out we may be able to re-buy some closer to the date. This is madness! I have booked time off work, we have a hotel booked in Dublin and for no reason of our own we have no tickets for the show despite spending all morning online ensuring we would get them when they were released. I feel this is so incredibly unfair that we’re being punished for someone else’s mistake.”

We contacted Ticketmaster in connection with both of these queries. Firstly, it was looking into the issue with the Celine Dion refund at the time of writing.

Secondly, it quickly resolved Fionnuala’s issue, and arranged for her to have accessible tickets to the concert – a result she was delighted with.