Alucard

I think it goes over your mong head that you don't pay £5 every time you post on the internet. Can you explain your point about not getting a ticket because it's lost on me

The same onnline system that the fans didn't get charged for in the previous 5 years of use. If it was costing that much per transaction wouldn't Lowe,Crouch, Wilde etc. have passed the cost on If we are being charged £1 per call we are being royally ripped off and should use another agency 10p max. These are the same staff that would serve somebody at the ticket offfice window where there is no extra charge for their services. There is no 2.5% surcharge on debit card purchases The majaority of the cost but 36p second class post and 2p for the envelope. That makes a charge of 75p to cover the transaction realistic. Now explain the other £2.25

The last reserve game I went to was free not £15 + ticket tax. I am just stunned that 2500 fans could be arsed to travel to Palace when a fixture containing the same players played at Palace's training ground as part of the old reserve league would have attracted 3 men and a dog

I'll show you what the club did for the fans to enjoy on the 125th anniversary http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2223453,00.html A chance to spend £125 (+ VAT) on a 2 course meal and a football match and to see some legends from the past (not including MLT, LM & FB) What a bargain for the average fan. At least the ex-players tried to do something for the people.

And you know for a fact that this is accurate??

No but what would it cost the club to make an anouncement over the tanoy at half time or display a quick advert on the stadium screens. Obviously advertising space in the program would cost real money and I can appreciate not wanting to be out of pocket but a 30 second slot from the inane pitchside idiot would cost nothing. The club issued a statement on TV distancing itself from the 125th anniversary bash at the Mayflower attended by many ex-players but what did the club do itself to mark the occasion apart from make a lot of money selling a one season kit.

Well it certainly wouldn't have led to less fans attending. The fact is that for years the club have supported ex-Saints events. Other clubs manage to support their ex-players charities as well as the clubs own charity. Why can't we? It seems very petty to spite a charity event because of feuds with a minority of the ex-players.

12 disciples are chosen, invited to eat at Nicolas table and then go forth and spread the gospel according to St Nicola.

And the people who already had foreign holidays booked between the 1st July and 15th July were meant to cancel them so they could queue up at SMS with proof of identity, age and inside leg measurement, and manually collect the tickets which couldn't be collected until weeks later anyway.

I think he said he was impressed that anybody had managed to buy a season ticket within the 2 week renewal period after all the other obstructive factors had been put in the way

Yes last season the OS were highlighting sales in excess of 13,000 as soaring. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2096359,00.html This year not a dickie bird from the Ministry of Truth. Can't really believe season ticket sales haven't exceeded 13K after promotion. Maybe we don't need a 60K seater stadium after all.

Excuse me for being stupid but why were some people waiting on the phone for hours to renew their season ticket when we've paid so heavily to get such a premium service. And if someone only buys one ticket they are charged an amount that is greater than the £2 that the club annouces would deter people buying on the day. Then again i suppose the deterrent factor does work because I have decided to watch the Leeds game on TV so the club trying to screw an extra £3 out of me has cost them £30 And for a similar cost Tescos allow me to order my shopping from my sofa, pack it neatly into bags,the credit card fee and a driver to deliver it personally to my door at a time of my choosing. I wonder which process is more labour intensive and who wants my business most

What sort of company outsources a small part of it's business at such a large cost that forces it's product prices to increase by over 10% I do know that it's the same online system we've had for over 5 years and no previous regime found the cost so great that they had to hike ticket prices by £3. Just because Ryanair, Ticketmaster etc get away with ridiculous overcharging because fools and their money are easily parted doesn't make it right. But then it wouldn't be hidden and people wouldn't be unfairly penalised because they can't get to SMS during working hours. And we wouldn't have the £2 detterent charge that doesn't actually deter very many people.

You'll be lucky not to have to pay a £10 reprint charge and a £2 surcharge for troubling the TO staff on the day of a match

You are trying to make it sound like we've just introduced some super swish state of the art system that's costing a fortune to run. We haven't we have the same crappy online booking system we've been using for the past 6 years or so which won't even let you pick specific seats. Why has the cost of running this suddenly rocketed to the point of costing £3 per transaction where up until last season a charge wasn't even made for postage? I believe we should have made a charge for postage but obviously all the previous regimes were willing to absorb the cost as part of the increase in revenue from selling more seats by making it easier for the customer to purchase. I know a lot of the telephone orders are now handled by an outside agency but what business in their right mind outsources a minor part of the business at such a cost that it has to increase their product price by over 10%

You should have looked at it as only being £10 with a £2 surcharge for buying on the day. Somehow that's meant to make it better value.

Just because lots of companies do make these charges doesn't make it right. Which magazine have launched a formal "super-complaint" with the Office of Fair Trading over online surcharges stating Which launched its complaint against the charges in February, claiming they "are often sprung against the customer at the point of payment and can be far in excess of what it costs to process the transaction.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't know until a few days before a game whether I can attend due to work and family commitments so have to buy single tickets. If the club really wanted to disuade people from causing a large rush for walkups just before kick off they could put a £10 surcharge on tickets sold after 2pm on matchdays and selling tickets before that at the advertised price. The deterrent price is conveniently set just small enough not to deter too many people and therefore maximise revenue from walk ups.

And you are club's ideal customer just accept the charges and get on with your life. At what point would you call the surcharge excessive £5 , £10 because that is what SFC are trying to find out . If you want club to buy a nice shiny new centre-back I wish you had the option to chuck your spare cash into a bucket at the turnstile rather than having it surgically removed from your wallet by not being able to buy a ticket at the advertised price without visiting SMS (and leaving the car park within 15 minutes) which to a lot of people is not an option.

As a transactional cost it is not the norm . Booking online at the Odeon Cinema is 75p (or I can avoid it completely by buying my ticket when I actually go). Why are you taking all the fixed costs of running the ticket office and dividing it by the number of online transactions? Surely the fixed costs should be spread across every ticket and not just those purchased online or on the phone. The online charges are so high as they judge that is what they can get away with charging not anything to do with costs actually incurred in performing the transaction. Again I ask you Can you please, please, please explain to me how the £2 charge to deter me from buying a ticket on the day works when my only alternative is paying a £3 'administration' fee for buying it online or over the phone pre match day.

That is what I really object to, being charged £3 to administer something that in reality costs less than 50p. However if they called it a 50p admin fee + £2.50 rip off charge even the terminally gullible would see it for what it is. Can you please, please, please explain to me how the £2 charge to deter me from buying a ticket on the day works when my only alternative is paying a £3 'administration' fee for buying it online or over the phone pre match day. If you are going to make a surcharge a deterrent then the amount charged has to actually be large enough to deter people not just raise extra revenue. Why has the free parking time been reduced to 15 minutes. We were told some BS about the parking charge being introduced to prevent hordes of people parking at SMS and spending the day in town shopping so the first 30 minutes were free to allow customers to buy tickets without being charged. I take it that Usain Bolt has started using SMS to park his car and gets to West Quay and back within 30 minutes so now the free period has had to be reduced. The club is following the Ryanair model so expect check-in charges and toilet taxes to be rolled out next

If you honestly believe that it costs £3 to handle an online transaction you deserve to be parted from your cash. If it does cost SFC that amount then I suggest they start looking elsewhere for someone to handle the online ticket sales. Why do you believe SFC would not be screwing fans for something that hardly registers on the bottom line when they've reduced the free parking time to 15 minutes to do just that.

Having had the fault reported to them on the 20th July the onus is then with SFC to take responsibilty and control of the problem no matter who caused the problem initially. A simple statement to the fact that there has been a printing error and this is how the problem will be solved would have saved countless people the problems of returning to SMS, waiting on the phone to the ticket office, posting their tickets back etc. But instead what have SFC done. Ignored the problem completeley leaving it up to the customer to have to do the chasing and sorting and risking potential panic and chaos when people who have not heard of the the problem discover they haven't got voucher No 1 when standing in the queue on Saturday. The disrespect for their customers shown by SFC makes Santander look like customer service gurus.

So what's the point of having the tearout bit at all? Why is the season ticket not just a plastic card to be shown on entry. Surely these scraps of paper have some use or why bother printing them in the first place.

Well as there has been no need to check in the past 30 years of being a season ticket holder why should there be any need now. I don't buy a book from Waterstones and flick through making sure all 476 pages are there before I read it. Perhaps under your logic I should. Much more worrying is the reaction from Southampton Football Club. Absolutely nothing. No statement (that I've been able to find) from the Ministry of Truth (OS) warning people of the cock-up and asking them to check. No statement to the local press. And as for resolution, what is the company policy. Some people have been told to destroy their original book and will be sent another, others told to send them back and be sent another , others just sent multiple books. Total shambles. Anybody not reading this site will be totally unaware of the problem until they come to tear out ticket No 1 which they don't possess. What has the club done to prevent this. Very little. Appalling customer services. ****up and brewery spring to mind.