If your STEP tickets didn't sell ... URGENT

[Aviatrix]

If you failed to hear the fate of the tickets you submitted to the STEP, check your junk mail straight away!!

This e-mail might be waiting for you ...

There was a problem with your STEP refund.

Dear Burner,

We apologize for sending this email again, however, the form in our previous email did not work.

We are reaching out to you because we are unable to complete your refund for submitting your tickets for resale through the Secure Ticket Exchange Program (STEP). We've been in deep discussion with our credit card processor as well as our merchant bank and still have yet to get a satisfactory answer as to why we can't get your refund to go through.

In the interest of getting you your money back as quickly as possible, we'd like to go ahead and cut you a check for the amount of your tickets (and vehicle passes if applicable) which you submitted to STEP, for a total of $833. You have our deepest apologies that it has taken this long to resolve.

Before we put a check in the mail to you we need you to confirm that the shipping address on your order is the correct place to send it. Please use this form to give us your preferred delivery address.

Please complete the address confirmation form no later than Sunday, August 17 so we can begin processing your check on Monday.

Burners like you are the lifeblood of STEP and the only reason that this is a thriving resource for the community to safely exchange tickets at face value. Thank you for your participation and for helping to give other Burners access to face-value tickets in a risk-free environment.

Sorry again for the confusion and inconvenience.

Burning Man Tickets

After all the unanswered e-mails to ticket support since STEP closed, I received this on August 15th.


Hope this helps some folks.

[theCryptofishist]

Well, it's rare to see an apology for something like that.

[BoyScoutGirl]

Word about this definitely needs to get out - thank you for posting.

[cariocathe]

Anyone else still waiting to receive their refund from STEP? Ticketfly says they don't have control and BM TIcket Support has been unresponsive.

[BBadger]

It's still pretty ridiculous that STEP closed while there were still tickets in the queue that were unpurchased. While it's easy to blame the people who didn't decline the purchase if they didn't want it (or by accident), even if people didn't respond to ticket sale emails the offer should have expired and the queue should've proceeded until all the tickets sold -- possibly shortening the time to respond if the original 72 hours was too long. The demand was there, after all. Maybe that'll be a further refinement on the process next year.

[Elderberry]

It's still pretty ridiculous that STEP closed while there were still tickets in the queue that were unpurchased. While it's easy to blame the people who didn't decline the purchase if they didn't want it (or by accident), even if people didn't respond to ticket sale emails the offer should have expired and the queue should've proceeded until all the tickets sold -- possibly shortening the time to respond if the original 72 hours was too long. The demand was there, after all. Maybe that'll be a further refinement on the process next year.

Good point.

[Bless]

Something smells fishy to me.

[Jackass]

Something smells fishy to me.

Probably hooked up a PNP camp with those tickets, BMORG guy pulled some strings... my tinfoil hat told me so.

[BBadger]

It'll be like one of those cliché plots where some secret organization has been making big-money-that-nobody-noticed via the rounding errors in market transactions!

[Shermy]

Hi everyone,

I bought two tickets but unfortunately I couldn't go so I entered them into STEP and had it confirmed by BM that the tickets had been successfully entered. I subsequently contacted them on two occasions to ask what was happening and was asked to confirm my address details, bank details etc which I did. I have heard nothing since despite having persued this with both ticket support and customer services. Does anyone else find themselves in the same boat? I have no idea whether my tickets were sold or not or whether I'm due a refund. It's very frustrating.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[BoyScoutGirl]

If they were sold, the credit account you bought the tickets with would have been credited the cost of the tickets (minus fees) as soon as they sold through STEP.

[lucky420]

And if they didn't sell I'd still want the damn ticket. I'd frame it or use it in some art somewhere...

[Elderberry]

Hi everyone,

I bought two tickets but unfortunately I couldn't go so I entered them into STEP and had it confirmed by BM that the tickets had been successfully entered. I subsequently contacted them on two occasions to ask what was happening and was asked to confirm my address details, bank details etc which I did. I have heard nothing since despite having persued this with both ticket support and customer services. Does anyone else find themselves in the same boat? I have no idea whether my tickets were sold or not or whether I'm due a refund. It's very frustrating.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

I understand your frustration, but continue to follow-up with them. Someone should get back to you eventually. (at least that's what I would do.)

[GreyCoyote]

Shermy: below are several paragraphs out of the official Terms and Conditions, Waiver and Release Form (“Terms and Conditions”) located here: http://tickets.burningman.com/terms-and-conditions/

The document begins:
"...In consideration of being allowed to participate in and attend the 2014 Burning Man event (the “Event” or the “Burning Man Event”), I agree to comply with any and all rules, regulations, terms and conditions of the Burning Man Event, including but not limited to the following:..."

So we know we are reading the "official", operative and binding contract.

The part you are mostly interested in is:

"..BRC will provide the Secure Ticket Exchange Program (STEP) to facilitate purchasers attempting to resell tickets. Once physical tickets have shipped you may no longer submit your ticket for resale through STEP. If your ticket is resold through the STEP process, you will receive a refund of your ticket purchase price and your delivery fee, but not of your per-ticket or per-order service fee. Submitting your ticket for resale through STEP does not guarantee that your ticket will be resold and does not guarantee that you will receive a refund of the ticket purchase price, if there are no individuals who actually purchase your ticket. Once you submit your ticket for resale in STEP you may not rescind the offer to sell it. Conversely, signing up to express desire in purchasing tickets that may be resold does not guarantee that you will be given the opportunity to buy a ticket through STEP. Vehicle passes are fully transferable, but they are not eligible for resale through STEP..."

So the official Burning Man position is they may not necessarily have to give you a refund. All they have to do is say the ticket didnt sell.

Keep trying. And cross your fingers the ticket(s) sold.

[ACfromSAC]

That would be some bull if someone put their ticket in STEP, rightfully expecting it to be sold, and then wound up not having it sold for some reason. Five or six years ago would be one thing, but the demand was PLENTY high this year to have all STEP tickets sold. That's no small sum of money that the seller is missing out on by not selling them. STEP tickets are sold by people choosing to not scalp and make a profit off the event. The ORG should be issuing refunds to anyone who put their tickets into step; every single ticket could and should have been sold. I'd be pissed if I got hosed on selling my tickets through STEP.

[elKay]

Especially if there was one single person who stood at the gate, unable to buy a ticket to a sold out event.

[Elderberry]

Highly unlikely that anything nefarious is going on here regarding BMORG and STEP other than admintrative confusion that will be sorted in due time.

[trilobyte]

You guys are under the mistaken (and misguided) impressions that STEP is intended to provide any kind of guaranteed or unlimited program for returning, exchanging, or reselling tickets.... it is not.

The way STEP worked when it was open was that a person would contribute a ticket (or tickets), and then it would get offered to the next person in the queue. The person receiving the offer had 72 hours to respond and purchase tickets. If the person didn't respond and the offer expired, the tickets were then offered to the next person in the queue, rinse and repeat as necessary until the tickets sold. STEP shutting down meant exactly that, the program shuts down. After that point, you can't sign up for tickets, you can't contribute tickets, and no new ticket offers are made. People who waited too long to put tickets into STEP learned the hard way that. They. Waited. Too. Long. By late summer, many who signed up for STEP may have either made other plans or gotten tickets by other means, and so a ticket may wind up being offered to several people on the list (with each getting 72 hours to make a purchase) before it's purchased.

Receiving an email that tells you that tickets were entered into the system is not any kind of guarantee of sale. If you have received an email notification that your tickets have been sold but have not yet received a credit to your card for those tickets you should get in touch with Burning Man tickets immediately using the [email protected] address and include a copy of your ticket sale notification email and any relevant order # information.

For any other questions or issues regarding STEP or Burning Man ticket issues, get in touch with the Burning Man ticket team directly by using the [email protected] address and include a copy of your order # and any other relevant info. If you had previously written them on the issue, please make sure to reference the ticket # from the original issue (when you send them an email, you're sent an automatic acknowledgement email that includes a ticket #).