CLEVELAND — Michael Malone of Lakewoood said he only wanted to make a simple transaction of less than $40 when selling a pair of Cleveland Guardians baseball tickets last August, but the transaction produced nothing but frustration.
Malone told News 5 he's a huge baseball fan, but said family comes first, so he decided not to attend the Aug. 17 Guardians game against the Detroit Tigers and sell his tickets using a ticket re-seller.
“Man, I’m crazy about the Guardians ever since they were the Indians; my first memory was 1954, looking at the stats and saying we’re going to kill the Giants," Malone said. “But I travel a lot to go see my grand kids, so I sold the tickets on SeatGeek.”
Malone showed News 5 documentation, emails and a customer service chat he had with SeatGeek, but after his tickets were sold and months went by, the company never put the $39.60 into his bank account for the sale.
"SeatGeek said that it was canceled. I emailed them the next day and I said Major League Baseball doesn’t cancel games in August. I said no, it was postponed," Malone said. “So I called and I talked to the guy and the guy said we have to refer to our internal department and we’ll get back to you — never heard back from them.”
Malone said he understands we're not talking about a lot of money in this case, but he believes the company should get it right.
"It becomes more a matter of principal than the money. You know, $40 or whatever, I mean I can get a half-tank of gas," Malone said. "But it’s the principal; these guys don’t seem like they care once they got my money.”
Ericka Dilworth, Cleveland Better Business Bureau Director of Operations, told News 5 that consumers should run background checks before they buy or sell event tickets using a ticket re-seller service.
“You need to do your homework, part of that homework is looking at reviews and what people are saying about where you’re buying your tickets from," Dilworth said. “You have to go into any transaction as if it’s going to fail and keep all your documentation, names of who you spoke to, phone numbers, email addresses, texts.”
Dilworth told News 5 that the company currently has an "F" rating with the Better Business Bureau due to consumer complaints.
News 5 contacted SeatGeek headquarters for this story, but the company decided not to issue a statement. Malone reported just a few hours after News 5 made contact with SeatGeek, the company did send him the money he had been waiting for since August of last year.
Malone issued some advice of his own when buying or selling event tickets online.
“Counting the times that I got disconnected, I probably called four or five times, I probably emailed them three or four times," Malone said. “Read their policy on cancellations and things like that, because if it is canceled you’ve got to go to the original seller of those tickets.”
