S'pore fans buying BTS concert tickets end up with The Click Five tickets instead, Ticketmaster finds no glitch but issues 'goodwill' refunds

After queueing virtually for hours for tickets to the Singapore BTS concert, a Mothership reader was anxious when she finally got to the ticket selection page.

In her haste, she quickly completed payment without carefully reviewing the details.

It was only later when she checked her confirmation email that she realised she had purchased tickets not for the K-pop group, but for The Click Five.

The American rock band will be performing at Expo on Aug. 29, months before BTS's concert in December at the National Stadium. Tickets to both were sold on the Ticketmaster website.

Mothership spoke to three separate customers, all of whom experienced the same issue and requested a refund.

A Ticketmaster spokesperson told Mothership that "based on the information available, it appears that these customers inadvertently purchased tickets for the wrong event".

Nevertheless, Ticketmaster gave all three customers a full refund on Jul. 24 "as a gesture of goodwill".

How did this happen?

When she realised she had bought the wrong tickets, the Mothership reader felt confused and upset. She tried to investigate what happened.

She said that according to her browser history, she was in the queue for tickets to the Dec. 19 BTS concert during the Jun. 4 online pre-sale.

After that, she was redirected to the Ticketmaster homepage, and then to a ticket selection page.

But the ticket selection page was for The Click Five instead of BTS, she said.

This was a fact she only realised this later.

At the time, her mind was occupied with worry that the tickets would sell out or the website might crash.

"I remember seeing that the event was on a Saturday and assumed everything was correct," she said. "Only later did I realise that The Click Five concert was also on a Saturday, just on a different date."

As she was helping a group of friends secure tickets too, she bought six tickets, at a total cost of S$1,716.

She was not able to get BTS tickets in the end.

"By the time I realised the tickets were not for BTS and rejoined the queue, I had to start from the back again," she said. "Unfortunately, the concert was sold out by then."

Was it a glitch?

The reader suspects there was a possible technical issue on Ticketmaster website.

There was no record on her browser history of her visiting the page for The Click Five's concert, and she was in the correct queue for BTS tickets, she claimed.

This made her believe she was redirected to the wrong ticket selection page.

According to this reader, she was not the only one who experienced this.

She saw a few users on Carousell trying to sell tickets to The Click Five, and after messaging them to ask, learnt that they had similarly ended up purchasing The Click Five tickets while trying to buy BTS tickets.

One claimed they lost about S$2,200 getting the wrong concert tickets.

Requesting a refund

The reader's own attempts to sell her accidental The Click Five tickets have not been successful.

"Most of my friends are not familiar with The Click Five and were not interested in attending the concert," she explained.

Her other solution was to request a refund from Ticketmaster.

Although she felt her chances were slim, she submitted a request and appeal hoping that her case would be reviewed.

However, Ticketmaster told her they had investigated her claim and "no technical fault has been identified", according to screenshots of the correspondence seen by Mothership.

"Based on our review of the transaction logs and system data, we do not find any evidence of a technical issue or malfunction that would have caused you to be directed to the wrong event page."

No glitch found: Ticketmaster

On Jul. 24, the three customers who requested a refund told Mothership they received an email from the platform that day informing them they would receive a full refund.

"While our findings do not indicate that the transaction resulted from a system-related issue, we appreciate your concerns and understand the circumstances you have shared," Ticketmaster wrote in the email, as seen by Mothership.

The platform went on to explain that they "made a one-time exception" to provide a full refund "as a gesture of goodwill and without any admission of liability or fault".

In response to Mothership's queries, a spokesperson confirmed that based on investigations, the customers had "inadvertently" purchased the wrong tickets.

The spokesperson emphasised the responsibility of the customer to be more careful.

"The event name is displayed clearly on the website and throughout the checkout process, and customers are prompted to review all event and ticket details before confirming payment.

As a gesture of goodwill, we have refunded these fans."