Ruby on Rails Hosting: From HostingRails to RailsMachine in a shake of a tail

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Ruby on Rails Hosting: From HostingRails to RailsMachine in a shake of a tail

 

Oh Firefox, why aren’t thou working?

Oh Firefox, why aren’t thou working?
Once in a while, you stop responding.
My keyboard types, my fingers stomping…
But you’re ignoring our bonding.

We’ve had so many joyful years
Together – sharing laughter, tears
Despise for impotent Explorer
The fear, the weakness and the horror.

And now look at what you’ve done
You’ve turned yourself into a pun
A joke on browsers and alike
I can’t go on with this last strike.

And so I am leaving for another
Her name’s Safari, and she’d rather
Be there, when I need her most.
I am sorry. Our love is lost.

 

Don’t get StubHubbed… It hurts.

If you haven’t heard about StubHub, that’s probably good for your wallet and sanity. This internet startup allows all kinds of people sell their tickets to you. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? Except that it’s makes for a hell of a crappy trip to a concert, after you are told your tickets have been illegally resold for profit, and are not actually valid, and that you are essentially a victim of scam. Subsequent interaction with StubHub support leaves a whole lot of room for improvement… So let’s just say that:

DO NOT BUY YOUR TICKETS FROM STUBHUB.COM…

Seriously, just don’t.

For more details… read on. So this is what happend to me while attending recent Manu Chao concert in Greek Theater, Berkeley. Searching on the internet for tickets to the event showed at the top of the search the shubhub link (those guys obiviously know how to screw Google), with tickets seemingly available at a high $75 per ticket (compare this to $30 actual ticket cost). I bought two, paid an additional $26 “service” charge, and was happy that “I was in”.

Once we got to the concert, we got turned away at the door and sent to the ticketing booth, where a gentleman from the production company told us that:

1. The tickets we have on hand were given to a sponsor, which then resold them for profit
2. The tickets have since been cancelled and are no longer valid
3. We should never ever buy tickets from unauthorized reseller (such as StubHub)
4. He can’t let us in.

This totally sucks! All that after paying $176.95 for this pleasure.

We ended up making it to the concert after all, only because the gentleman finally conceded and let us in, without the ticket… But all this ensured a not-so pleasant concert going experience, to say the least.

Turns out StubHub has a 2 day policy – that if you don’t call them right away they don’t refund anything. This was not obvious when I bought tickets, and without reading the small print on another page this information is not available anywhere.

I was tied up with my work, so I just happened to have called on a third day to report that we’ve been scammed, and received a firm “1 day too late” notice. After a lot of deliberation I received a crappy $15 coupon for the future use of StubHub’s services…

Here is a quick quiz: How many times will I use StubHub in the future?

1. Zero
2. Zero
3. Zero

Correct! You got it!

Thanks (not!) StubHub for a very unpleasant concert going experience, and just as unpleasant customer service experience. Funny, considering those guys “guarantee” that, among other things: “…Your tickets will be authentic and valid for entry.”

Meanwhile, I am back to using another dark star – Ticketmaster…

References:

1. Ticket Reselling article on WikiPedia
   
2. Misleading StubHub Guarantee blurb, that does not mention the 2 day limit