I hope I live to see the day that the Glazers and that cnut Ratcliffe feck off out of my club. Ineos have been just as bad in every way so far.
The club treating loyal fans like sh*t again
- Thread starter KStandBarmyArmy1993
- Start date
Well there are only two options out of it, either become a state nations plaything or the pipedream of a consortium made up of ex players contacts. I will say that the optics regarding this look exceptionally bad on the club, so you know what that probably is leading to don't you
This particular piece of classic corporate half arsed solutioning confusing a report with analysis bullshit, whether it eradicates touts or not, and leaving aside other entirely plausible motives the club may have for this nonsense, has got nothing to do with ambition or transfers. People are, rightly, pouring scorn on our dickhead owners and I sincerely hope that our fanbase continues to kick back hard against this sort of shit.
Thankfully this has now become a media shitstorm - BBC, Talksport, all the papers etc are covering it which is obviously a complete embarrassment for the club
They now have no choice but to make it a priority to clean up this mess - could have all been avoided by liaising with fan groups before starting this purge
They now have no choice but to make it a priority to clean up this mess - could have all been avoided by liaising with fan groups before starting this purge
Yeah hopefully this leads to some action, it's wrong
Can you understand what the club are trying to actually achieve here? Have you actually considered that?
And they'd be absolutely spot on.
You've obviously completely misread the room on their actions to combat touting, no one is against it, its how there has been no dialogue from the club to notify fans that its being rolled out, or how its being rolled out.
They've gone for a blanket approach on suspending ST holders who have used their account outside of their mobile, even if they've simply logged into their account on a computer to buy tickets, which has caught plenty who haven't done anything wrong.
So no, this isn't on us, this is on you not being able to see what they are doing wrong and sympathising with them over it is plain weird.
A pinch of salt.
It's all 'United In Crisis' style reporting to them.
They'll want rival fans chirping in with 'They think they're so special' style responses as it generates engagement.
Sadly, that dilution will give the club leverage.
If this email has been sent out based on evidence of ST holders that are sharing account login details, then this activity isn't limited to ST holders.
I'm just a member but have done it before, logged into a mate's dad's account (also member) to access his ticket from my phone. So it feels like ST holders being targeted in this situation. Maybe they will go after members later, but there's more money to be made for the club targeting ST holders first and releasing their tickets to non-ST holders at a premium price, as others have commented to...
Either way, a crap way for a club to treat its fans...
I'm just a member but have done it before, logged into a mate's dad's account (also member) to access his ticket from my phone. So it feels like ST holders being targeted in this situation. Maybe they will go after members later, but there's more money to be made for the club targeting ST holders first and releasing their tickets to non-ST holders at a premium price, as others have commented to...
Either way, a crap way for a club to treat its fans...
The way they have gone about it is piss poor.
I think ticket touting needs to be addressed. Season tickets should only be for match going fans and their friends/family.
They could have taken much the same action without backlash if they had communicated and worked together with supporters groups.
I think ticket touting needs to be addressed. Season tickets should only be for match going fans and their friends/family.
They could have taken much the same action without backlash if they had communicated and worked together with supporters groups.
I doubt my opinions on this will be very popular here but anyway, here we go...
I always find myself a little confused when any change to ticketing policy crops up and I read all the uproar online about how terribly 'loyal' fans are being treated, and this is no different. I've read that approximately 5k season ticket holders received the email last week which is just under 10% of all season ticket holders. And whilst I wouldn't for one second believe that 10% of season ticket holders were touting, I would completely believe that around that number were regularly doing some kind of breach of the ticketing policies.
Too many people have forgotten what the point of a season ticket is, it's for people who want to attend every game. Far too many people aren't arsed about a Monday night against Burnley, they just want to guarantee their seat for the Sunday afternoons against Liverpool and City. They don't want to take their chances in a ballot and risk missing out due to the demand. Speaking from my personal circumstance, I've had my ticket since 2011 and I go with my dad would has been going since 1973. We go to every home game without fail unless one of us is out of the country, in which case we have a tiny network of about 5 friends who will go instead. They're all members and all get the ticket properly forwarded, they all choose not to buy a season ticket because their work commitments mean they can't go to every game.
This to me should be the way it works, a season ticket bought with the intention of going to every game during that season, with a backup of genuine, known fans willing to step in on the odd occasion you can't attend.
Back to the 5k in question, I'm sure there will be lots amongst them that have a perfectly reasonable excuse for whatever activity has been identified. This will always be the case when using AI to identify patterns, it will pickout everything that meets a certain criteria, so some things will need a bit of extra clarity. And I'm sure those people have nothing to worry about, they'll get their ticket reinstated.
What the club should have done is sent out a blanket email to all season ticket holders at the beginning of the summer informing us that this process was going to take place rather than catching everyone unawares when it happened. The issue of them then selling off reclaimed season ticket seats as 'hospitality' is also wrong and they should be rightly criticised for it.
But overall if you ask me if I would believe 7-8% of season ticket holders don't use them as they should, then I would say yeah, sounds believable enough and would back the club's attempts to do something about it. I feel sorry for the genuine people caught in the crosshairs but I think they will be put right in due time. I think the fuss over this is a little over the top.
I always find myself a little confused when any change to ticketing policy crops up and I read all the uproar online about how terribly 'loyal' fans are being treated, and this is no different. I've read that approximately 5k season ticket holders received the email last week which is just under 10% of all season ticket holders. And whilst I wouldn't for one second believe that 10% of season ticket holders were touting, I would completely believe that around that number were regularly doing some kind of breach of the ticketing policies.
Too many people have forgotten what the point of a season ticket is, it's for people who want to attend every game. Far too many people aren't arsed about a Monday night against Burnley, they just want to guarantee their seat for the Sunday afternoons against Liverpool and City. They don't want to take their chances in a ballot and risk missing out due to the demand. Speaking from my personal circumstance, I've had my ticket since 2011 and I go with my dad would has been going since 1973. We go to every home game without fail unless one of us is out of the country, in which case we have a tiny network of about 5 friends who will go instead. They're all members and all get the ticket properly forwarded, they all choose not to buy a season ticket because their work commitments mean they can't go to every game.
This to me should be the way it works, a season ticket bought with the intention of going to every game during that season, with a backup of genuine, known fans willing to step in on the odd occasion you can't attend.
Back to the 5k in question, I'm sure there will be lots amongst them that have a perfectly reasonable excuse for whatever activity has been identified. This will always be the case when using AI to identify patterns, it will pickout everything that meets a certain criteria, so some things will need a bit of extra clarity. And I'm sure those people have nothing to worry about, they'll get their ticket reinstated.
What the club should have done is sent out a blanket email to all season ticket holders at the beginning of the summer informing us that this process was going to take place rather than catching everyone unawares when it happened. The issue of them then selling off reclaimed season ticket seats as 'hospitality' is also wrong and they should be rightly criticised for it.
But overall if you ask me if I would believe 7-8% of season ticket holders don't use them as they should, then I would say yeah, sounds believable enough and would back the club's attempts to do something about it. I feel sorry for the genuine people caught in the crosshairs but I think they will be put right in due time. I think the fuss over this is a little over the top.
No-one would disagree with much of that content other than the implication that the club are doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts to rectify what is largely a minor problem of people being a bit cheeky in sharing STs. Why would they risk this PR disaster and fan turmoil over that?
They would not IMO and have given you a clue in going straight for 'touting' as their reason before blanket accusing a chunk of the match-going fanbase.
I'd suggest your take is well intentioned but a little naive.
I don't need to read the room, I have my opinion and I feel the club is justified in what they are doing to combat illegal actions.
Is it the best way to go about things, possibly not, but I'm yet to hear an alternative that will work.
Its the pure anger at the club that I don't understand, anything the club does seems to be a punching bag for fans on this forum now, almost like they are actively waiting for the club to do something they don't agree with so they can bad mouth it with extreme toxicity.
The reaction to this situation is way over the top in my opinion.
Why do you keep alluding to this being a 'this forum' thing? It's national news?
I don't care about what other threads are saying about random Utd shit - the lads posting in here cares about THIS topic. And we are explaining why we think it is bang out of line.
I and many others spend multiple thousands of £ every year following the club, so I can assure you I do not go out of my way to slag it off unless I think they very much need to hear it. Not should spending money or even following the team necessitate forming that opinion.
Story of my life to be honest, mate. I find it makes me a lot less stressed than most people I know though.
I don't think it's all out of the goodness of their heart for one second though. The price rises since INEOS came in have been irritating for a start after 10 years of the Glazers freezing prices. My ticket per game has jumped from £47 to £57 in recent seasons, what they dress up as a small rise in line with inflation is actually 21% in no time at all. And like I said the reselling of sold season ticket seats with a £10 meal and calling it hospitality should stop. My gripes about tickets are about prices rather than policies. I support any action to keep as many season ticket holders in their seats for as many games as possible.
The point I was trying to make is that for all the chin-wagging and arm-waving on the internet about, "I was just helping my mum" and "my uncle doesn't know what smartphones are," I'd be willing to bet that the overall number of 5k is about right for the number of season tickets not being used as they should.
The other point I'd also make in response to people talking about the erosion of fan-culture and trying to get rid of the sort of old-school core of fans - I personally think that the atmosphere in the ground has gone up several levels in the last few years. It's far louder in the post-digital age than I remember it being in the late 00s and early 10s.
- Perhaps, and this is only my own anecdotal evidence now so I accept you can take it with a pinch of salt. But I know multiple people flagged here who wouldn't dream of any foul play. So i'm highly suspicious of it.
- Agreed, the atmosphere is far better now post covid. But that's in spite of the club, rather than because of it. TRA, safe standing initiative etc. And they are on the way to reversing it with the latest member ticket price changes IMO. Not a chance our member tickets going from ~£45 a game two years ago, to ~£75 a game now isn't gonig to start having an effect on the demographic attending.
If you want to crack down on touting or those pushing the boundaries of sharing tickets you need to look into data around number of games forwarded by each season ticket holder.
If you’re forwarding 19 games to the same member then it’s obvious the ticket is in use by someone else, give them the opportunity to change the name on that ticket, those on the waiting list won’t like this but don’t see anything wrong with inheriting a season ticket from a family member.
If you’re forwarding 10+ games then that’s alarm bells, look into the data and check who they are being forwarded to, if it’s two or three people over the season then maybe it’s a genuine case here and they’re unable make games and have a small network or supporters who attend instead.
Now if you have forwarded those tickets to 10+ different accounts the. there’s a good chance you’re doing something dodgy here. Contact them first and question these transfers, don’t just blanket ban thousands of supporters.
The intention from the club was fine but the ticket office have totally fecked up their approach as usual.
If you’re forwarding 19 games to the same member then it’s obvious the ticket is in use by someone else, give them the opportunity to change the name on that ticket, those on the waiting list won’t like this but don’t see anything wrong with inheriting a season ticket from a family member.
If you’re forwarding 10+ games then that’s alarm bells, look into the data and check who they are being forwarded to, if it’s two or three people over the season then maybe it’s a genuine case here and they’re unable make games and have a small network or supporters who attend instead.
Now if you have forwarded those tickets to 10+ different accounts the. there’s a good chance you’re doing something dodgy here. Contact them first and question these transfers, don’t just blanket ban thousands of supporters.
The intention from the club was fine but the ticket office have totally fecked up their approach as usual.
It's national news in respect that the supporters trusts have made it national news, all the reports state are that United are doing what's needed to stop illegal actions and that select fans have been caught up on the cross fire, nothing more than that.
The BBC report is actually very impartial and almost respective towards the club, even stating that no tickets have actually been revoked yet.
The anger on here is far in excess of what's needed, in every thread, this one in particular.
Leverage for what? The club has simply fecked up in the way this was implemented, they have already been backtracking this week once fan groups made them aware and will continue to do so now that the media is all over it
Of course the media just want the clicks that United bring but that's not important, the media scrutiny and bad PR will now force the club to look into this properly and I expect the vast majority of ST holders will get their tickets back
Personally I don't buy much into conspiracy theories about the club doing this to cut ST numbers, I think it mostly just comes down to incompetence and a lack of understanding about how fans use the relatively new eticketing systems
I think this is mostly spot on.
To build on your last point though, I'd add there are loads of problems with the app.
I've seen and heard of more issues though since the start of season just gone when it forced fans to save in Google/Apple wallets rather than having the ticket QR code in the app itself.
Before that, it seemed to work fine and people had got their heads around the forwarding thing to members. Since then, they've opened the door to touts getting hold of tickets.
Older fella near us in K Stand is one of those with the email now and we reckon it's because him and his brother shared a Google account with the season ticket on (which they perhaps naively thought was OK as it was so easy to do...)
It is also just a bit mental that football clubs think it's 'normal' to ask for this amount of information now.
It's a football club, not a bank. Surprised it doesn't break some kind of GDPR regulation.
It's a football club, not a bank. Surprised it doesn't break some kind of GDPR regulation.
Asking supporters to email copies of drivers license or passports to a general mailbox is a pretty dumb thing to do as well, at least fire up a secure portal for documents. What happens with those copies is another issue altogether, I wouldn’t trust those clowns with anything of mine, wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a laptop sat there now with thousands of passport copies locally saved in the downloads folder.
So the club are flagging accounts where the season ticket has been added to / used on 6 or more phones?
If so, what is the issue there?
The club have a process to forward tickets free of charge to other members.
I’m not saying everyone caught up in this are touting, as there will be some that are sharing the tickets in a non approved way, I.e letting mates or family members all log into the same account on different phones.
Doesn’t the club have to account for the person who is sitting in the seat at any given match? They can’t do that if they same account is used by multiple people.
Just forward the individual tickets by the method that’s been set out for several years now.
If so, what is the issue there?
The club have a process to forward tickets free of charge to other members.
I’m not saying everyone caught up in this are touting, as there will be some that are sharing the tickets in a non approved way, I.e letting mates or family members all log into the same account on different phones.
Doesn’t the club have to account for the person who is sitting in the seat at any given match? They can’t do that if they same account is used by multiple people.
Just forward the individual tickets by the method that’s been set out for several years now.
I was a season ticket holder to an NFL team and I’ve seen this before.
The truth is greedy owners see season ticket holders as undesirable customers. They would rather be able to sell individual match tickets at double the price than what a season ticket holder pays. Those people who buy individual tickets are more likely to spend at the mega store, eat and drink inside old trafford instead of at home or the surrounding pubs and do stadium tours. They can also do “dynamic pricing” with individual tickets so if it’s a match that means something like a title decider they can raise the prices significantly and as the World Cup and concerts have shown us, people will pay it.
The truth is greedy owners see season ticket holders as undesirable customers. They would rather be able to sell individual match tickets at double the price than what a season ticket holder pays. Those people who buy individual tickets are more likely to spend at the mega store, eat and drink inside old trafford instead of at home or the surrounding pubs and do stadium tours. They can also do “dynamic pricing” with individual tickets so if it’s a match that means something like a title decider they can raise the prices significantly and as the World Cup and concerts have shown us, people will pay it.
Yet according to the BBC...
"Manchester United insist that revoked season tickets will be repurposed as new ones for supporters on the waiting list."
As much as everyone wants to just assume that the club are only trying to make money with every move they make, maybe they are just trying to clamp down on touting. Or at least ticket sharing that isn't happening via the official method.
If they wanted to hand over more seats to day trippers, they can easily do that by converting any STs that are not renewed to match by match seats. As far as I know, people in the waiting list are still getting seats when they come up.
It has nothing to do with the number of phones... If people are using multiple phones to log into the app and access tickets, they might be on to something that the club might get success with, but most of us don't do that.
It's people that might sort out their network or community - put away apps in, renew theirs and mates' season tickets, check results. United Data has gone way over the top and not really identifying the right accounts IMO. There is nothing in the Season Ticket T&Cs that says you can't share accounts to do things like this. Yes, there will be touts and stuff doing the same - but they don't seem to be catching them, do they?
The club does not really know how the supporter uses the system; they use an off-the-shelf product from Seatgeek, and used AI to try and figure out touts.
It was reported by Jamie Jackson in The Guardian.....
United last week contacted fans who used six or more devices to access accounts linked to the club
Yes, I agree that most fans don't do that. Most fans know by now the official transfer process, where the recipient has to have a membership. They even offer a discounted "transfer membership" to accommodate this.
As opposed to touting, I suspect many people are just sharing seasons tickets using the same account and on multiple phones, as im not sure a tout would want to hand over login details of an account each time they sell a ticket. Unless they go to the trouble of doing password resets post every sale!
The T&Cs say...
A Season Ticket may be used by a person who is not the Ticket Holder pursuant to, and in accordance with, the upgrade/transfer procedures and/or the sharing procedures set out in these terms and conditions. Subject to those procedures, Season Tickets are personal to Ticket Holders, are not transferable and shall not be transferred or re-sold under any circumstances, save: (i) where expressly permitted by the Club in its absolute discretion; or (ii) via any ticket exchange system operated by or on behalf of the Club.
Of course, there may be edge cases where someone has setup with season ticket on multiple phones. If that is the case, let those people show evidence.
Why wouldn't they know?
Its not exactly hard to pull data to see how many phones a season ticket has been associated with, and how many times a different phone has been used to scan at the turnstiles with a particular season ticket.
If they really wanted to deep dive, im sure they have CCTV footage of every turnstile entry to cross reference against.
And how do you know they are using an "off-the-shelf product" ? Once they have the source data, any AI model can give you the results in no time.
They're using Seatgeek enterprise software for the ticketing platform - they don't really pay extra for additional features, just use the base software and some additions. Around 7 other clubs use the same software.
This exact AI-led analysis has proven that they don't know their base; a high majority of these people caught up in the mess are innocent and do what I said in my previous post. Luckhurst has hinted it's not even caught the touts up in the analysis.
When you say these people are "innocent", what does that mean? Innocent of touting, or innocent of sharing single seasons tickets across multiple (6 or more according to The Guardian) devices ?
And how do you know what people are doing? Do you know these people?
In my opinion, the majority of these people are just logging into the same account on multiple phones and sharing the same ticket, as opposed to each buying a forwarding membership for £30 a season. If your mate just wants to go to one of the 19 PL games, then they are probably trying to avoid paying that £30 forwarding membership, as it would turn a £50 ticket into an £80 one.
Whatever software is being used, it cannot be hard to identify seasons tickets that have been used at the turnstiles on multiple phones.
Innocent of touting - just sharing account info for other people to do what I mentioned before. Away apps, pay for season tickets (I've done this in the past for Amex points - and have to do each person separately because of bugs in the software that cause cup-scheme issues), stuff like that... The club will say you can use Strong relationship to do that, but that messes up payments.
I know people that have groups; they all go, but one person puts in all the apps in groups of 6. He logs in to each lead applicant to do them, logs out, and onto the next one He also logs in and out for payments, doesn't do them in one go, for the reason I said above. They might also help forward a ticket if one of the lads isn't in a position to do it.
Call it a lead admin, but none of them is touting, none of them is doing anything against the club's T&Cs, and forwarding is being used when it shouldn't be.
I agree that most here are probably very innocent of touting.
As I mentioned prior, I don't think touts are operating by handing over MU account logins to those they sell tickets to. A
The use case you describe is all well and good, but do you know people are actually being flagged for this? And even in your scenario, why would the "lead admin" be accessing accounts on 6 or more phones/devices?
I doubt it's just logins too, because if that is the case, I would have been flagged. I have multiple phones, Macs and PCs where I have logged into MUFC.
When Jamie Jackson said the club have flagged people that had accounts on 6 phones, it would be interesting to know if that means if they have been flagged because the ST has been used on more than 6 phones at the turnstile. That would indicate the T&Cs are being broken.
The lead applicant doesn't access any phone to do his stuff; he logs in to one account, puts the app in for up to 6 people, logs out, logs in to the 7th person, puts up to 6 people, logs out, etc... you can't do more than 6 per app, so he has to use multiple account logins. Do that 30 people, that's 5 different accounts accessed, and then he does some execs, that's a 6th...Each successful away ticket is more or less delivered to the Season Ticket Holders Mobile app, not the lead application
The "phones" is a red herring; this has been purely down to account logins and where from. it's nothing to do with scans at turnstiles (there is another story on that, for another day - probably bigger than this one but I'm not going there right now)
If Jackson is correct when he said "United last week contacted fans who used six or more devices to access accounts linked to the club" then why would under your scenario, the "lead admin" be flagged? Isn't the lead admin doing all the admin on one PC?
And what is your source to say that this is the exactly what is happening?
If United were really bothered about touts they would have kept the system of collecting European Aways in country and only getting credits when this process was completed. They dumped this to save a few quid, and this let the touts in, and blew up the credit system, requiring everyone to apply for every European away regardless of if they could go or not, just to keep ahead on credits.
Jackson has got it wrong. That's not what the emails are saying.
I think I've earned my stripes to not have to reveal my sources, maybe not on here, but elsewhere I have.
First wave email said
Second wave email said
I'd trust Cheeses over Jackson!
Ha cheers mate