When I received a credit card bill with a charge for NC$$ Frozen Four tickets, I thought it meant that my name had been selected in the lottery. I now have a high priority number, so that is a reasonable expectation. I talked with a friend yesterday (who does not have a high priority number). He called the NC$$ and found that they charged the credit card account of EVERY applicant for Frozen Four tickets. If a person doesn't get selected in the lottery, the amount will be credited back to their accounts. In the meantime, the NC$$ has had the use of this money. And people who have balances on their credit card accounts will have paid interest on the money that the NC$$ "borrowed" from them. BTW, the NC$$ thieves offered to remove my friend's name from the list. Such arrogance!!! :-( Has anyone else experienced this?
[Q]redice Wrote:
When I received a credit card bill with a charge for NC$$ Frozen Four tickets, I thought it meant that my name had been selected in the lottery. I now have a high priority number, so that is a reasonable expectation. I talked with a friend yesterday (who does not have a high priority number). He called the NC$$ and found that they charged the credit card account of EVERY applicant for Frozen Four tickets. If a person doesn't get selected in the lottery, the amount will be credited back to their accounts. In the meantime, the NC$$ has had the use of this money. And people who have balances on their credit card accounts will have paid interest on the money that the NC$$ "borrowed" from them. BTW, the NC$$ thieves offered to remove my friend's name from the list. Such arrogance!!! Has anyone else experienced this?[/q]
It's been noted, grumbled about, and put behind most of us.
http://lists.maine.edu/cgi/wa?A2=ind0404&L=hockey-l&D=0&F=P&P=1450&F=
They also charge you the $6 application fee whether you get the tickets or not.
Time to call in Eliot Spitzer. The NCAA takes no back seat to Wall Street when it comes to self-indulgent financial policies. But then, don't pro sports teams do that, too?
I'd be shocked if charging a non-refundable application fee was in anyway illegal, considering how many organizations use this little ploy. Not that some enterprising legislator won't try to make it illegal. And not that that little detail would necessarily stop Mr. Spitzer...
[Q]KeithK Wrote:
I'd be shocked if charging a non-refundable application fee was in anyway illegal, considering how many organizations use this little ploy. Not that some enterprising legislator won't try to make it illegal. And not that that little detail would necessarily stop Mr. Spitzer...[/q]
As a practical matter, an ambitious lawyer could probably nail the miscreants if they didn't keep scrupulous track of the mailing list, if they didn't have a failsafe way to refund fees (what happens if you close out your credit card and somehow the NCAA can't link to your new card?), or if it was considered coercive behavior. What if the NCAA required a $1,000 deposit for the max four tickets you could buy because it -- heh, heh -- hadn't set final prices yet? What if there was a hard-to-uncheck $100 contribution to the NCAA athletes-are-us TV campaign? There are so many hoops you have to jump through, I bet the NCAA would mess up on one.
Sometimes I think the NCAA is for people who, try as hard as they might, aren't scummy enough to be on the International Olympic Committee.
I think I turned against the NCAA when they opted to outlaw the University of Hawaii's rainbow uniform because it was, too, ah, what, colorful? I'm trying to remember if they tried to set color limits on headbands, too. Sheesh, the old guard probably wishes they could outlaw tattoos (well, me too) or maybe have a team limit (no more than 10 tattoos on the floor at one time).
If ever there was a place where you shouldn't trust anyone over 30 (well, 40), maybe it's the NCAA. Maybe there should be a rule: If (two or more of the following) you've had prostate surgery, take Viagra or estrogen supplments, or weigh 20% more than you did in college, then you have to put in your retirement papers.
[q]As a practical matter, an ambitious lawyer could probably nail the ...[/q]Probably true in many, many instances. A good enough litigant, a stupid jury and... Maybe the fact that so many teams do this kind of thing simply says that the fees aren't large enough for anyone to take them to court over it. And that there hasn't been an enterprising lawyer to make a class action suit out of it. I can just see the settlement. If you can prove that you applied for NCAA tickets in the last three years you get $5 per application back. The lawyers, of course, get millions...
[Sorry, couldn't resist a little gratuitous lawyer bashing...]
[Q]KeithK Wrote:
[Q2]As a practical matter, an ambitious lawyer could probably nail the ...[/Q]
Probably true in many, many instances. A good enough litigant, a stupid jury and... Maybe the fact that so many teams do this kind of thing simply says that the fees aren't large enough for anyone to take them to court over it. And that there hasn't been an enterprising lawyer to make a class action suit out of it. I can just see the settlement. If you can prove that you applied for NCAA tickets in the last three years you get $5 per application back. The lawyers, of course, get millions...
[/q]
Right. Slimy lawyers raise the cost of doing business and they make way more than they should in major cases.
At the same time, the threat of litigation has made lots of products safer.
I wish there was a middle ground. I don't want to have to press "OK" before using my car's nav system each day.
The application clearly explained that exactly what happened would happen. And that any interest they earned from the "float" would go toward the NCAA's "educational programs" or whatever.
That doesn't make it suck much less, but still. Read your fine print.
Beeeej
[Q]Beeeej Wrote:
The application clearly explained that exactly what happened would happen. And that any interest they earned from the "float" would go toward the NCAA's "educational programs" or whatever. That doesn't make it suck much less, but still. Read your fine print.
Beeeej[/q]
You and I can probably afford to float the NCAA a couple hundred dollars for a year. How about a fan just a couple years out of school, in grad school now or paying off loans. Bet the NCAA doesn't make any exceptions for, ah, students and undesirables like them.
are you sure that is a permanent charge. I know that plenty of organizations and businesses send out a charge that soon disappears. this checks to make sure cc is legit and has the balance to cover the charges. some ticket vendors do this (warehouse - the dave matthews band fanclub). it is a phantom charge, though...
Technically, it's a delayed capture. You can either do a complete sale where there's a single transaction and funds are captured at the point of sale. That's the type you see most often in stores and the like.
The other method is an authorization/delayed capture, where the authorization occurs first, to make sure the account is valid and there are sufficient funds (and optionally check street address and zip code, depending on the bank). This is usually how it works for online orders. An authorization transaction does not transfer funds, rather it places a hold on the cardholder’s open-to-buy limit, lowering the cardholder’s limit by the amount of the transaction. Later, the funds are actually captured, either for the original amount requested, a lesser amount, or a greater amount (which incurs an additional transaction fee). The thing is, the length of time the authorization will remain active before automatically voiding itself depends on the bank/card, but is usually around 10-14 days, so it wouldn't work for the NCAA's needs. And reducing a customer's open-to-buy limit for the better part of a year wouldn't be much better than actually charging them anyway.
But, here's the thing. The reason the authorization/delayed capture exists in the first place is that major credit cards prohibit merchants from capturing credit card transaction funds until product has shipped to the buyer. There are some exceptions. The lodging industry may charge for one night if a guaranteed reservation does not show. The lodging industry may accept an advance deposit of up to 7 nights. But that's about it. Nothing about the NCAA or Frozen Four tickets. :-)
I'm sure Visa/MC/Discover/et al are making enough money off the transactions (2 transaction charges for everyone who gets turned down for that matter--charge and credit) that they probably turn a blind eye, but it's clearly in violation of their own policies. So I'd say if anyone wanted to go after the NCAA over this issue, this would be a much more clearly defined violation.
And don't mind me. I just pissed away the last two years of my life developing a billing system from the ground up. Hideous stuff.