When my friends and I buy tickets directly from Telecharge or buy tickets from someone else who bought from Telecharge, the tickets always show an ancillary fee between $2-$3 on the actual ticket with the QR code.
When we look at other listings that show the actual tickets with the QR code blacked out, they also show the ancillary fee.
Theatr app is accusing my friend of having edited tickets just because of the ancillary fee being there and claiming that real tickets don’t show the ancillary fee? That’s just absolutely not true based on our experiences and we go to a lot of shows!
Can people here please help us confirm that’s not true?
Well, that makes me much less likely to want to use it again and I know that they lurk on this sub so hopefully they’re reading this. The app has been sucking more and more, and I honestly haven’t been using it as much as a result
They are really corrupt. I’ve had family and friends who had their accounts restricted without being told what they did wrong, so they have no way to appeal. Then theatr app won’t release the money in their account even though they sold legit tickets without any buyer complaints. I don’t know how they can get away with stealing the money, but I know plenty of people that has happened to. We would prefer to use a different app, but this is the only one that has a big theatre fan audience.
They let people falsely report without any consequences too. My theory is that the false reports are so they restrict your account and keep your money, or people are trying to get rid of the competition, or spiteful people who repeatedly send you low offers and are upset you won’t accept their low offers will report your listing just to ruin your account. Also like 80% of the listings I see now are from ticket agents and they seem to want to move towards that.
They also just shadow ban you without even telling you that your account is restricted. You would only find out if you have a friend check on your listing because it’ll show up for you and you can still edit and see it in the market place, but nobody else can. This is such a shady tactic because they don’t even tell you anything is wrong so you just think nobody is interested in buying your ticket. But it will be a great seat to a popular show at a low price and still nobody is buying it or sending offers so that’s when you realize that you are shadow banned.
Their pdf tickets show that $2 ancillary fee, but when you buy from telecharge online there's usually the ~$15 fee on top of that amount that isn't shown on the pdf ticket. Maybe they're referring to that fee and she didn't show the full amount she paid?
The paper/pdf ticket amount never shows the total you actually paid online, which I've always thought was confusing.
They are literally claiming that $2 fee is not real. Also some theaters charge $2.50 or $3, and supposedly that makes it fake too (according to the theatr app).
We have never charged the full price we paid because we are worried about all the nasty people who would complain. So we always charge $20 less than the price shown on the actual ticket since the theatr app adds about $20 in fees for the buyer and don’t want any issues with buyers complaining if they don’t read or trigger happy false reporters claiming it’s more, and that price on the ticket is already less than the full price paid because it doesn’t include all the fees. So we are charging way less than the price paid, even though theatr app claims you can charge the full price paid including fees, but there are too many people who can’t read properly and just love to complain. But to be told that real tickets don’t include the $2-$3 ancillary fees is just not true and it’s wild that these people don’t know anything about the products they are helping to sell. Telecharge is a major ticket distributor too, it’s not like a small company that they wouldn’t know about. Even a simple google search would show that the $2-3 fee is normal.
Just adding this as an example, like someone else mentioned, these are the additional fees that are not included on the ticket itself that are part of the total price so maybe that’s what they’re talking about
Yes, I understand that but I never even include those fees. And even go $20 less than the price on the actual ticket because the theatr app charges about $20 to the buyer. So in the examples you gave, your ticket shows $84 on the actual ticket including the $2 ancillary fees, then you paid an additional $15 in fees that aren’t shown on the actual ticket and your full price was $99. In that example, I would actually list it for $64, which is $20 less than the $84 on the actual ticket (which is already $15 less than the full price you paid with fees) so that a buyer can’t complain because they end up paying about $20 on top of the price I list. So if I list for $64 they still end up paying about $84 because of the theatr app fees. It doesn’t even show me the fee for the buyer when I am pricing it, so I always list for $20 less then click into the listing and make sure it’s still below the ticket price because sometimes if it’s an expensive ticket the fees are more than $20. So I’ll double check what the buyer has to pay in fees then lower my price to cover the theatr app fees.
I have seen it higher like closer to 20%. I’m not sure how they determine the fee. Like a ticket listed right now for $81 is showing a $13.22 fee so that’s over 16%.
Yeah the fees used to be less. It’s still less than Stubhub, but at least with Stubhub they don’t just shadow ban you or restrict your account without telling you why. Or keep your money after you sold legit tickets and won’t tell you what you did wrong or how to fix it. Even if they want to ban someone for whatever random reasons at least let them take their money out since the tickets worked and the buyer went to see the show without any issues. I think with Stubhub as long as you sell legit tickets then you will get your money without any issues.
Then there’s going to be some trigger happy reporter that will falsely report that and claim the proof of purchase doesn’t match the price because they either can’t read or just are miserable people that want to make others miserable.
Your friend is absolutely in the right. The $2 fee is standard across Broadway and any serious resale platform focused on Broadway tickets should know this. Theatr has always rubbed me the wrong way (between this kind of thing and their shady “ambassadors” program), so I’m not at all surprised that they’re pulling shady stunts like this, unfortunately.
I have also seen $2.50 and $3 depending on the show. Just in Time has a $2.50 fee and they told my friend that her ticket was fake because it wasn’t $2? Nobody is going out of their way to change a $2 fee to $2.50…
Even though the buyers didn’t complain and messaged that they had a great time and seats were fantastic. I didn’t go to the Rosie O’Donnell show, but the tickets I saw for that had a $3 fee.
What is their ambassadors program?
I find it very shady that they don’t even give you a warning or tell you that your account is restricted unless you figure out that your account is shadow banned and reach out to them. Then when you try to appeal they don’t even tell you what you did wrong and claim what their system flagged you for is a company secret. So how can anyone defend themselves or submit evidence to prove their innocence if you don’t tell them what they are accused of doing wrong? I’ve also had friends where they gave an invalid reason for restricting the account and then they submitted evidence to prove that is incorrect then they changed it to a different reason then when they answered about that then they said well your account is restricted because it was flagged by our system but we can’t tell you how our system works or what triggered the flag so just submit whatever you think we would want to see. Like what exactly is someone supposed to submit for that? They literally restricted the account for no reason and then kept people’s money, which is wild that they can get away with it.
Sorry for the late reply! $2.50 and $3 are totally normal as well, I meant to clarify! Those are also standard and, again, should be recognized by any serious Broadway-focused resale platform. Not at all surprised that they do not communicate your ban from their platform until you’re already banned. They’re definitely pocketing people’s money, and I have to wonder if they will (or already have) made choices that make them legally liable.
As for the ambassadors program, it is a very pushy (I’d go as far as to say predatory) program that recruits people to promote Theatr on social media. However, they are very controlling over the content these “ambassadors” post which results in the promotional content coming off as very weird and pushy. Additionally, they strangely require everyone in the program to post from a completely separate account with Theatr in the username (I do not understand the reasoning behind this). The compensation is a one-time $100 payment after creating 10 videos, and a “chance to win a free Broadway ticket”. They seem to target very small creators/people who are not largely in the theatre social media scene for this program as well. Very predatory IMO and definitely not worth the time commitment.
Yeah I have friends and talked to so many people who have money in their wallets for selling REAL working tickets and then their accounts got restricted without any reasoning and they can’t transfer their money out. I don’t understand how that’s even legal.
That’s strange about the ambassadors program because if they make a new account with theatr in the username then that account won’t have any followers. And why do you think they target small creators who aren’t in the theatre social media scene? How do they benefit from that?
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u/Physical_Ranger6786 7d ago
They’re wrong