The Bruery Customer Service :(

The interesting thing is that the original post only mentioned the e-mail they got a couple of days before the event. But this thread was started two days after the party. I have a feeling that they didn't e-mail the Bruery at all prior and their guests just showed up and got denied entry to the event.

 

1) Cite the law they are breaking.

2) "couple of days before the event" - define the window when things wouldn't be "incredibly shitty customer service"

3) Ha, moral or ethical way, it's like way even have rules?

 

Have you ever heard of a concert venue or sporting event where you can't simply hand the ticket over to someone else to use instead?

 

yeah its called a niners game

 

Yes. All the time.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...ter-fans-turned-away-from-london-show-w504601

 

1) When I have more time I'll dredge up the conversation I had with my lawyer buddy discussing the Lost Abbey's policies on this and give you some citations.

2) Allow tickets to be transferable or allow tickets to be refunded up to a certain date, or both. If they had no trouble selling out the event, then a couple days before the event they should have no trouble reselling the ticket. If they had lots of trouble selling out the event, they should probably be entertaining the idea of allowing tickets to be transferable.

3) Rules (or in my example, laws) are not inherently moral or ethical. See: any of a nearly infinite list of rules put in place to discriminate against others. The rules here are not discriminatory, but they're put in place precisely to be draconian and unfair so that the business does not have to do the hard work of otherwise policing their customers who they believe will try and take advantage of more lax restrictions (I'm not even saying they're wrong about that).

If you no show the event, if you show up dressed inappropriately, if you show up hammered, if your buddies show up at the event and the ticket was non-transferable, that sucks, but it's unreasonable to expect that at that incredibly busy time that any brewery would have staff equipped to take time to deal with that issue. I'm not saying there needn't be restrictions or rules in place. And I haven't seen all the communications, so if this was REALLY REALLY obvious and impossible to miss and the OP did anyway then I'd walk back the harshness of my stance a bit.

 

"On Wednesday, a Stubhub representative said that ticket-holders who were denied entry for the concert would be eligible for refunds, calling the ID policy "not fair to customers." "

 

Also, "all the time" is an absolutely ludicrous position to take when pointing to a news article about how unexpected this is that it fooled hundreds of people and was such a big deal it became a news item in Rolling Stone.

 

Which would suck but be a different story. Really, my perspective hinges entirely on how obvious The Bruery made it that tickets were non-transferable AND non-refundable. If they went nearly overboard to make this clear, then they probably did their due diligence. If they left it vague enough, or easy enough to skip over, that people could easily miss, then they should fix that and try to make it right with anyone who got fooled.

In general, I have my sympathy more with the people who made a trivial, every day mistake that almost every fellow human makes: missing the fine print on something. We're all busy, distracted individuals and I see no need punch down on someone for a mistake anyone could make.

The Bruery is generally wonderful when it comes to customer service, has been for years, and is run by people I at least know in passing and like and employs and has employed other people that I'm friends with. I bear them no ill will, and I shouldn't have taken such a strident stance because (a) it's the internet and (b) don't have all the details of this particular situation.

The irritation and tone is set more by the increased prevalence of breweries offering limited pick up windows and a zero refund policy for beers and events. I realize they're all attempts to curb a wily and unruly populace of neckbeards, but they're specifically hostile to achieve their intended effects. And it leads to both the haves and the have nots having zero empathy for each other.

 

Well that's a different argument entirely. I'm not disagreeing with you that the Bruery could have done something more. But to act like you can easily get tickets refunded for any kind of event isn't really being honest. Yes, there are other means of getting rid of those tickets but you can't just call them up two days before an event and say, "Sorry I can't make it. Give me a refund."

It seems like you take this kind of thing very personally based on your comments about Lost Abbey and your lawyer friend.

 

I have communicated poorly if that's the impression I've given.

I take all shitty user experiences personally

Most tickets can be transferred. If I buy a ticket to a game or a show, for the most part, I can pass those along and I'm not out anything.

The only reason that isn't true ALL the time is an attempt to pass the burdens of bad actors (most broadly, ticket scalpers) back onto consumers. I'm not passing judgment over whether this is good or bad, it's just a reality.

Since this is isn't yet commonplace practice, I think the burden falls on businesses to make this abundantly clear. Not in fine print, not mentioned once in passing, but ABUNDANTLY CLEAR.

Further, in an instance like the one described, assuming the OP is being honest, The Bruery was following the letter of a rule set out to discourage a type of activity instead of the moral thing: which was to not take money from someone and give nothing in return.

 

That's fair. And to be clear, the Bruery (as far as my experience is concerned) has always made it abundantly clear that the member has to be present at these sorts of things. The reason I know this is that I've been out of town for many events and would have loved to have friends go in my place but every time I've looked at tickets, they do explicitly say that the member has to be present.

 

Is there a reason you couldn't show up at the entrance when your guest arrived?

Can't think of a reason the Bruery wouldn't be ok with this - member still confirms the guest is legit, everyone wins.

 

From what I understand, he's in another state and bought two tickets for his trustee and his trustee's friend. So that's why.

 

Oh gotcha... that wouldn't work, now would it! Haha.

 

Teleporter technology hasn't come far enough yet...although hologram is getting there.

 

"This beer is virtually delicious."

 

Being able to have this experience would work wonders for my beer belly.

 

I placed a shipping order for 12 bottle shipper and small merch shipper on 10/30 and no word at all to date on it....i understand there were some BT shipments that made things busy, but still...this is not acceptable...in the past communication and service I feel was much better.

 

Have you contacted them? What do they say? We can’t do anything for you here.