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Oldham Ticket Office = Disgrace?


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Never had a problem with the ticket office myself. Ordered tickets plenty of time over the phone and theyve always been polite and posted tickets for free for me, OK I dont live in the Manchester area but just thought Id put my 2p in as you only ever hear of bad reports, nobody ever says anything positive :)

 

On another positive note, I do live in the Manchester area (Royton to be precise) and I have on occasions ordered tickets over the phone when I've been unable to get to the ground to pick them up.

I have never had the slightest bit of trouble and have always found the ticket office staff to be very helpful.

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Oldham ticket office is most definately not the greastest thing about the club, look at the shambles it was last year for the play-off tickets. Getting a ticket outside of 9-5 is no longer a problem for me since my Dad is retired in all but paperwork and it gives him something to do (i usually go with him anyway) but I'm glad i had an unexpected day off for the Blackpool away ticket day last year. In this modern era not to accept payment by credit card for everything is a farce (although I'm fairly certain they do, bar season tickets), but there are ways to get round this as one of my dad's drinking buddies screwed the scum out of money using a legal bit of credit card avoidance (its becoming illegal though as they've not received payment but the scum probably see it as not worth it to get the money back by going through the courts). A new ticket office is desperately needed one with more than two windows (they don't need to staff it any bigger except for big games or peak times- like around match time) and facilities to deal with anyone who wants to pay over the phone by credit card as they can't get there during the day. BTW isn't the ticket office open early on Saturday and i don't think we'll sell out Leeds and Everton by then.

 

 

People have short memories on here, how about when Louis and co were opening a hour earlier for the Play off games, would have been well in the right to make us all wait until 9am in the cold.

 

Are you not going to the Game on Boxing day, you could pay for them now and collect them then. Whitefield isn't exactly other side of the world is it. Weekends, Holidays between Christmas and New Year, Boxing Day.

 

Everybody can't be perfect.

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Marhar I'm glad you e-mailed AH and as always I see you got a reply.

 

Just a few points for you to note "marhar" and others: -

 

1) For the Everton game, you could still have paid for your tickets over the phone and then picked them up between now and the game, e.g on the day of either the Forest or Walsall matches or any other working day if that was convenient for you. Others do this. The tickets are put in an envelope and then filed ready for collection.

 

2) The ticket office feels like it was designed about 2,000 years ago. In years gone by you were only able to buy tickets for what is now the main stand upper from there. After the Broadway stand was built, you could buy tickets for that stand from there upto 1pm on a match day after which you bought them from the Broadway stand ticket office which was staffed by match day staff. You hardly ever had any all ticket games in those days as the stadium was mainly standing and had a capacity of around 26,000. Since the Bradford fire and Heysel disasters, much has been done to stadiums in general including BP. However this has brought its own problems for oafc and there are a lot more ticket options to deal with now. Whilst the club have introduced a new computerised ticket system in the last 2 and a half years which has improved matters greatly for normal everyday situations, there are still problems with the office itself not least its size and therefore the ability to deal with an all ticket game i.e. Blackpool last season and matches like Everton and Leeds away over the festive period. The club are investing in new facilities in the new Broadway stand and having spoken to Simon Corney about the problem I believe that we will have much improved facilities.

 

3) I have worked on both match day and at other busy times in the ticket office since 1975 so know full well what problems are often encountered by supporters. I know that the club and AH in particular go to a lot of time and effort in planning arrangements. However, no one is perfect and there will not always be the perfect solution for everyone so bear this in mind.

 

4) You can pay for match tickets with credit/debit cards. Its free with a debit card and 2% with a credit card. IIRC the reason for not being able to buy a season ticket with a credit card was because the club went into administration (I stand to be corrected on this) The credit card companies would not release all the season ticket money to clubs who have been in administration as they are seen as a bad credit risk and if the club went bump, then the season ticket holders who have paid by credit card could make application to the credit card company for a refund.

 

5) Returning to the size of the ticket office. The new system is really really efficient. However, it is not possible to have more than 2 people working in there serving now. Previously you could have 3 people serving. It is not an issue of the club not having enough staff, it is the physical size of the ticket office that is the problem. For the Blackpool game, we could sell 2,500 tickets in a day with 2 people serving and others taking telephone orders. When the new stand is built I would hope that there will be facilities to possibly/probably treble the current situation and therefore have the ability to sell around 7,500 tickets per day. With the home capacity at around 13,000 that should be sufficeint to solve most peoples problems.

 

Finally, I know that the full time staff work their socks off. If you have a problem, e-mail the club. They will usually have a solution to help with your problem. Unless of course its a play off/cup game and you think you are the dogs wotsits and should have preferential treatment because you are a really super, super fan who is a better class of supporter. Even if you don't have a season ticket, don't go to every away game, (which the club should have a system for recording all individuals purchase details for) or contribute to the club in another way :wink:

 

Cheers,

 

Harry

 

PS. Wont be able to post anything further tonight as my home internet connection is down.

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Marhar I'm glad you e-mailed AH and as always I see you got a reply.

 

Yep, I really can't speak highly enough about him. And thanks for the info, the frustrating thing is that the planning and arrangements were in place, and it was probably justified to try and get people to pick up if they can. As AH says, if you can't pick up then the option was there, the ticket office staff just failed to communicate this. Seeing as they didn't then surely they should be reminded. I don't think as a customer you should be made to justify needing to the ticket office (or to amoweb :grin: - i know where whitefield is, i drive there every day) why you need them put in the post

 

More Alan Hardy's please

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Yep, I really can't speak highly enough about him. And thanks for the info, the frustrating thing is that the planning and arrangements were in place, and it was probably justified to try and get people to pick up if they can. As AH says, if you can't pick up then the option was there, the ticket office staff just failed to communicate this. Seeing as they didn't then surely they should be reminded. I don't think as a customer you should be made to justify needing to the ticket office (or to amoweb :grin: - i know where whitefield is, i drive there every day) why you need them put in the post

 

More Alan Hardy's please

 

No Justification needed

 

Merely pointing out the alternatives........ :)

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Guest oa_exile
People have short memories on here, how about when Louis and co were opening a hour earlier for the Play off games, would have been well in the right to make us all wait until 9am in the cold.

 

Are you not going to the Game on Boxing day, you could pay for them now and collect them then. Whitefield isn't exactly other side of the world is it. Weekends, Holidays between Christmas and New Year, Boxing Day.

 

Everybody can't be perfect.

 

Short memories indeed :unsure: the Lady is actually called Lois :)

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Get all my tickets via the phone from the ticket office ... except Everton / Leeds as they told me they weren't accepting phone sales anymore. Other than that never had a problem with them ... more than helpful

 

Not acceptting telephone orders ? :( Shooting themselves in the foot really.... For example....like I said before there is no way I can get to the ticket office during normal working hours and its a pain to go before the match. Either mean I would have to walk to the ground early, get the ticket and then go back to the pub...quite a round trip up and down sheep foot lane...or get there near kick off and face a massive queue....not the best is it...

 

Why dont the club sell the tickets via ticketmaster ?? Its so simple! and would give everyone another option!

 

Millwall do it!

 

Service charge is £1.30 and postage is £1.85... I would be happy to pay an extra £3.15 for the easy and convience of booking online and getting them delivered to my door with no hassel or excuess from the ticket office. Time for the club to move with the times! Fans could still go to the ticket office to avoid the service charge but if you want to book online then a small fee.

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Not acceptting telephone orders ? :( Shooting themselves in the foot really.... For example....like I said before there is no way I can get to the ticket office during normal working hours and its a pain to go before the match. Either mean I would have to walk to the ground early, get the ticket and then go back to the pub...quite a round trip up and down sheep foot lane...or get there near kick off and face a massive queue....not the best is it...

 

Why dont the club sell the tickets via ticketmaster ?? Its so simple! and would give everyone another option!

 

Millwall do it!

 

Service charge is £1.30 and postage is £1.85... I would be happy to pay an extra £3.15 for the easy and convience of booking online and getting them delivered to my door with no hassel or excuess from the ticket office. Time for the club to move with the times! Fans could still go to the ticket office to avoid the service charge but if you want to book online then a small fee.

be interesting tomorrow then as i know someone who is going to ring for 3 adult tickets and 2 kids tickets as they cant get to bp in person.

so they would be willing to turn down best part of hundred quid.

 

most other clubs offer tickets for sale via there websites,the only time we have was with ticketmaster.

i must say i have never had a problem before with tickets,either on the phone or over the counter,always been treated with courtesy and respect.

 

but it just goes to show how much we need bringing upto date with certain things.

im pretty certain if tta's knew that they were losing valuable money because of this they would make it a matter of urgency.

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be interesting tomorrow then as i know someone who is going to ring for 3 adult tickets and 2 kids tickets as they cant get to bp in person.

so they would be willing to turn down best part of hundred quid.

 

most other clubs offer tickets for sale via there websites,the only time we have was with ticketmaster.

i must say i have never had a problem before with tickets,either on the phone or over the counter,always been treated with courtesy and respect.

 

but it just goes to show how much we need bringing upto date with certain things.

im pretty certain if tta's knew that they were losing valuable money because of this they would make it a matter of urgency.

 

It is sooooo simple to set up selling tickets via the site or via ticketmaster....any developer worth his salt could do it...get it done :P

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