Chad Dupree says he was a Royals fan and a season ticket holder long before they were World Series contenders.
“Before they were good, they were still the Royals, and they were still my team,” said Dupree.
Dupree wanted to celebrate the Royals' newfound success April 5, when the team faces off against the Mets and receives World Series champions rings.
“It was $48 a piece for lower-level tickets, so I bought them,” said Dupree.
Since single-seat tickets are not yet available through the Royals box office, Dupree went to UberSeat, a secondary market ticket seller, to get the two seats in Section 110, Row J.
Dupree received an email with an order number and also saw a charge on his credit card. By the time he came home from work, he had another email saying the tickets weren’t available.
“They told me that they had already sold them previously, and I personally think they realized the tickets were worth more now because they’re going to do the ring ceremony," said Dupree. "The prices when I clicked on them had risen dramatically at that point.”
UberSeat’s response
UberSeat told 41 Action News that is not the case. In a statement, UberSeat said:
“When orders are submitted to UberSeat (and most other secondary market ticket sellers), they are placed into a “pending” status until the tickets can be confirmed. This process is in place to ensure that tickets aren’t double sold because many events (like the Royals ring ceremony) are in extremely high demand, so multiple customers try to place orders at the same time.”
UberSeat went on to say that the charge on Dupree’s account was an “authorization hold” to make sure the funds were available if the order was to go through. That hold was released when the tickets were not available.
“We sent the customer an email letting him know that his order had been submitted. Eight minutes later, after confirming that his order couldn’t be filled, we sent the customer another email, letting him know that the tickets were no longer available and that he was not charged,” said UberSeat in the statement.
Royals reaction
If you want guaranteed Royals tickets, you should go through the Royals box office or MLB partner StubHub, according to Royals Vice President of Community Affairs and Publicity Toby Cook.
“Our caution to fans is that once you get out of those two areas, we have very little recourse in doing anything if it goes awry,” said Cook.
Cook told 41 Action News that price gouging and counterfeit ticket scams became much more prevalent once the Royals started making a run in 2014.
“People with nefarious intent would come along and try to either sell counterfeit tickets or they would jack the price up to the point where we’re not happy that fans are having to pay that kind of freight in order to go to a Royals game,” said Cook. “It’s very disheartening when you fall in love with a baseball team and then you go online, and large sections of the entire stadium are sold out, only to find out later it was sold out because it was purchased by people who don’t even live here and were just reselling at a pretty large price.”
Cook said the organization does have mechanisms in place to cut down on outside resellers buying tickets in bulk.
Dupree’s message to future ticket buyers
“I guess the tickets aren’t yours until you have them printed up in your hand,” said Dupree, who feels UberSeat should have righted the ship by offering other tickets at the same cost. “If those tickets were supposedly sold, then sell me another set of tickets for the same price. I’m fine with that, but not for five times the price.”
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Brian Abel can be reached at brian.abel@kshb.com.
