Judgment on Presale Fees Defeat for ticket retailer CTS Eventim

As of: 06/09/2021 5:24 p.m.

Are ticket retailers allowed to keep advance booking fees for concerts that have been canceled due to corona? The Munich Regional Court has declared a clause ineffective that excludes a refund. However, there is no general claim. Several CTS Eventim customers are upset. You had booked a concert at the ticket dealer early on, which was then canceled due to Corona. Nevertheless, CTS Eventim withheld the advance booking fee. Now they want the fee back. The North Rhine-Westphalia consumer center therefore took it to court and sued the company. With success: the consumer advocates were partially right at the Munich I Regional Court. The judges declared ineffective a clause in which the company had excluded a reimbursement of the advance booking fee if the event was canceled or postponed. A corresponding sentence in the general terms and conditions is illegal.

It depends on the contracts

In the opinion of the court, the ticket retailer must bear the risk of an event alone and should not pass costs on to the customers if the event does not take place. After all, the dealer collects a commission if an event goes off successfully, the judges argue. In addition, the amount of the advance booking fee is often not visible in the ticket prices, the court complained. This is not transparent. However, the judgment, which is not yet final, does not mean that all customers are now entitled to a refund of the advance booking fees for the concert that has been canceled due to Corona. That depends on the respective design of the contracts. CTS Eventim would only be responsible for the reimbursement at a commercial agency. Eventim arranges event tickets either through a commercial agency or through an organizer through a commission. In the latter case, the concert promoter would be responsible for the reimbursement. “We are assuming that in a large number of cases Eventim wrongly withheld amounts of money,” said Wolfgang Schuldzinski, board member of the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia. Now those affected who are in dispute with the group could ask it to pay and refer to the judgment.

CTS Eventim suffers from the lull in concerts

The dispute over the advance booking fee shows how tense the situation in the concert event industry is. The largest German ticket retailer CTS Eventim is suffering from the unusual concerts and events. In the first quarter of this year, sales collapsed by almost 90 percent compared to the same period in the previous year. The Bremen company slipped into the red. The number of employees including temporary workers fell by almost a third. Nevertheless, CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg does not give up hope of a new start soon. He relies on the “longing of people to experience culture together”. The more people vaccinated, the greater the chance of concerts.

In January this year, Chenghua District Bureau of Chengdu Public Security Bureau uncovered a new type of telecom network fraud under the guise of “members rate reservations for hotels nationwide.”

According to Xinhua News Agency, at the end of December 2020, Mr. Lu, a Chengdu citizen, booked a four-night room in a hotel in Shanghai through a seller who provided hotel reservation services on the Xianyu platform. The seller stated that the original price for the four nights was 5,000 yuan. It only costs 3300 yuan to book through him. After taking the photo, Mr. Lu provided the occupant’s information to the other party and contacted the hotel for verification. After confirming that it was correct, he clicked to confirm receipt. But when Mr. Lu went to Shanghai to check in, he was informed by the front desk of the hotel that the order had been cancelled. Mr. Lu tried to contact the seller again and found that he was blackmailed by the other party, and then realized that he had been cheated.

According to the “Statistical Report on National Star-rated Hotels in the Fourth Quarter of 2020” issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, there are 9,717 star-rated hotels in the national star-rated hotel statistical management system in the fourth quarter of 2020, including 2,552 four-star hotels. There are 850 five-star hotels, accounting for 26.3% and 8.7% respectively. In addition, the average price of five-star hotels is as high as 523.27 yuan, and the average occupancy rate is 53.96%. Higher prices and vacancy rates have made some crooks smell business opportunities.

Jiemian News combed through the information on Black Cat Complaints, Zhihu, Weibo and other platforms and found that there are currently two main complaints from consumers about the reservation service of Xianyu Hotel. The first is Mr. Lu mentioned in the above report. In that way, the full payment was paid to the seller on Xianyu before the check-in, and the seller deducted the payment by himself and contacted the hotel to cancel the order. As a result, the consumer found that there was no room available when he arrived at the hotel.

Another situation is that consumers did not pay the room fee to the seller of Xianyu, but only paid a certain reservation fee, and the corresponding room fee was paid directly to the hotel upon check-in. Some of these consumers did pay the seller on behalf of the hotel. The booking was successfully checked in, but some orders were recognized as illegal operations by the hotel and could not be checked in.

The experience of a consumer on Weibo falls into this category. The consumer stated in his post that he had purchased the Conrad Hangzhou Hotel at a low price for two nights through the booking service, but he was questioned by the front desk when he checked in. “I followed the instructions provided by the seller to check in, but the hotel front desk said that I had encountered travelers cheating to check in with the same words before, which caused us to be very embarrassed, and finally failed to check in. We tried to find after being rejected by the hotel The seller claimed for the reservation fee, but found that it had been blocked by the seller.” The consumer wrote on Weibo.

So, where do the low-priced houses on the Xianyu platform come from? And why is there such a situation that “some passengers successfully checked in, while others failed to check in”?

“We will have some hotel sales agents on hand to sell us the negotiated price listings.” A seller who provides hotel reservation services on Xianyu revealed to the interface news. “After the buyer has provided the information, we will generally send the buyer a fake electronic version of the corporate name tag, or send the agreement number of the corresponding company to the buyer, so that the buyer will print it and show it to the hotel front desk when checking in. “The seller said so.

It is understood that the negotiated price means that some hotel sales agents specially sign an agreement with a large company or individual to agree that when the company’s guests or employees stay in the hotel, they can enjoy a preferential price. In this way, the hotel guarantees a certain occupancy rate and keeps the vacancy rate within a reasonable limit. It is generally lower than the listed price of the hotel. Some big companies such as Alibaba, JPMorgan Chase, IBM, etc. will sign an agreement with five-star hotels.

Take the Ritz-Carlton Nanjing as an example. During the period of 4.12-4.13, the price for ordinary travelers to stay in the hotel’s deluxe room is 1430 yuan, while the price for the same room type using Alibaba’s negotiated price is 1287 yuan. This one night produced a price difference of nearly 150 yuan.

The price difference of superior room types is even more disparity. Also on this night, the price for ordinary travelers to stay in a premium suite was 3480 yuan, while Alibaba’s negotiated price was only 3001 yuan, and the difference was nearly 500 yuan. This is not difficult to explain why most sellers on Xianyu provide reservation services only for top-level rooms such as executive suites or prestigious suites, and the resulting profit difference can be seen.

However, tourists staying in hotels through fraudulent use of negotiated prices are essentially an encroachment on the interests of the hotel. Xia Zifan, chief consultant of Lausanne Hotel Agency, said that the current hotel’s negotiated price leakage exists. If consumers book at the negotiated price, they must report the agreement number to the front desk when they check in. This is a common practice in hotels. However, it is inevitable that some unprofessional front desk staff did not identify well. This is also the reason that “some passengers will check in successfully, and some are told not to check in” mentioned above.

“This is actually a’risky activity’. Once the fraudulent agreement price is discovered by the front desk, you will definitely not be able to check in, and personal credibility will be affected. When I sell, I will inform the buyer that there is a risk of not being able to check in successfully, but As far as I know, other people rarely do this.” The above-mentioned idle fish seller told the interface reporter.

Xia Zifan also told Jiemian News: “It is still recommended that consumers book hotels through formal channels to avoid being unable to check in at that time.”

It is worth noting that the lack of qualification review of sellers on Xianyu platform and the inefficiency of handling user complaints have also caused dissatisfaction among some consumers.

A user posted on the Black Cat Complaint Platform that she saw a low-cost hotel booking on Xianyu platform called “Xia Chao’s Weightlifting Doll” on February 21, and she subsequently ordered it from the seller Orders. After contacting the hotel to confirm the information, she clicked to receive the goods, but then the hotel contacted her to pay again at the front desk. The user immediately filed a complaint to Xianyu’s official after realizing that she was deceived, but she found that the seller’s goods were still listed on the platform the day after she complained. “Xianyu platform has been allowing him to deceive without taking any measures.” The consumer wrote in the post.

Jiemian News tried to contact Xianyu regarding this incident, but has not received a response as of press time.

(Reporter Zheng Cuiying also contributed to this article.)