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Post by SoCal Hoya85 on Sept 20, 2007 8:57:11 GMT -5
I know the AD wanted to have credit cards be a payment option but couldn't do it this year. It has nothing to do with the 2% fee the companies charge. I think posters are right though, hopefully this problem is solved by next year- making buying tickets easier is always a good thing.
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Post by strummer8526 on Sept 20, 2007 9:01:15 GMT -5
Do you know what prevented the dept from getting the cards working? I'm just curious, and am morbidly fascinated by the way the University manages to make things more difficult for everyone.
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Post by SoCal Hoya85 on Sept 20, 2007 9:38:13 GMT -5
I know vague claims like that are death on message boards. The AD gets a lot of heat on these boards (sometimes rightly so for instance not including a return address in a mailer), which is constructive in a lot of ways in my opinion. They have done a lot of good things though, including the highly visable promotion in Leos and making student season tickets available to everyone. Not having a credit card payment option is a problem which should they should try and solve by next year, but I don't know if it should be the main topic of the Fill the Phonebooth promotion discussion. I don't know, just trying to be fair.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2007 10:06:32 GMT -5
Thanks also Florida for the word that the lower bowl is only around 8k - it seems like a poor architectural design to have 12k in an upper bowl, but so it goes. At Verizon, there are 22 sections in the lower bowl and 34 in the upper. Not a result of poor architectural design, but of necessity. Up top, there's a wider radius to work with and fill.
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RBHoya
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Post by RBHoya on Sept 20, 2007 10:25:22 GMT -5
Thanks SoCal for clearing that up. The truth is that this whole debate is futile. If you haven't noticed, student season tickets WERE able to be purchased by credit card in the past, at least since I've been here the past 3 years. Put two and two together here. It isn't so simple as to just say "C'mon athletic department, get your act together and make tickets purchasable by credit card!" as some here are. They were in the past, and they aren't now. Obviously something happened to preclude them from being able to accept credit cards again this year. As SoCal said, I know vagueness like that = death in a place like this, but it's an internal matter that is not up to us to discuss.
The point remains that the fact that credit cards aren't accepted this year has nothing to do with the AD not wanting to accept them. You can do all the mathematical analysis you want to show why credit cards are good for business, but it's just common sense. Everybody knows that, including Bernard Muir and everyone in McDonough. The reason they're not accepting credit cards isn't because they haven't figured this out or are too lazy to pursue it. It's a lot more complex.
As for the other major concerns in this thread:
-Tickets are able to be purchased by mail. The way to do so, including the address to send the form/check to, may not have been publicized perfectly, but it is sort of a niche thing for students abroad. Anyway, all the info is on GUHoyas.com if you look around.
-Students can actually drop their forms off beyond the hours of 1-5, in truth. There are no full-time employess down at McDonough to staff the ticket window; the hours of 1-5 are determined by when the student workers are around to staff that window, and as such they can be somewhat inconsistent even within those hours (from my experience). However there is a place to deposit your forms in the ticket office at any time during normal business hours. Enter the main lobby, turn left, second door on your left, the folks there will direct you if it isn't clear. Officially they'd like people to come between 1 & 5, but if the only time you can make it down there is 9AM, you can drop the form off (or get a form and fill it out) at that time as well.
-On top of that, Hoya Blue sells tickets from 6-8pm Wednesday and Thursday at the dining hall, and at our 9pm Tuesday weekly meetings. Somewhere in there, I should think everybody will find a convenient time/location to make the transaction. We're not talking about performing major surgery here--you're passing a piece of paper to someone else. I think everybody can squeeze out a couple minutes to make that happen.
-Buying tickets online... I totally agree with the sentiment that in the 21st century this should be a priority. But as mentioned before there are issues with credit card purchases at this point, so one step at a time.
-On the issue of students putting off their purchase... I totally agree and understand it. If there's no incentive to buy today vs. buy tomorrow, then why do so? Simple TVM would dictate that a hundred dollars today is worth more than a hundred dollars tomorrow (even if its only a very small amount more), so why would anybody part with the money before they need to? Plus, people are just lazy in general and don't get motivated to act until the potential for loss is bearing down upon them. It's understandable. Nonetheless several hundred season ticket packages have been sold, and many more are purchased each week. I fully expect there to be a very big bump right before the deadline (which still hasn't been set yet, but some time in October). But as long as the total number of tickets purchased continues to rise (and it has/is), the pack the phonebooth promotion makes good sense as far as I'm concerned.
-Why are we getting "bleu" now? Did I miss a thread on that somewhere?
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Post by 3balljwall on Sept 20, 2007 10:33:54 GMT -5
Has anyone thought that maybe the process of running 2,500 credit cards might be a too ardous task given the well known understaffed nature of the Athletic department? Also, its possible that with the chicken scratch handwriting some kids have (myself most definately included), it is difficult to decipher the correct numbers written, leading to declined cards or whatever. I have worked in retail where I had to process mailed and faxed order forms and let me tell you, 1 in 10 cards I got were either a bad # or a declined card. That led to a ton of follow up phone calls that took a ton of time. Not sure the athletic department can or wants to deal with that kind of hassle when all they have to do is ask for cash or check
(This is of course ignoring the bounced check problem, but at least the handwriting issue is not a problem there)
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HoyaSpirit
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Post by HoyaSpirit on Sept 23, 2007 20:08:41 GMT -5
3balljwall - great name by the way. yes there can be some declined cards, but besides the fact of bounced checks that you mentioned, you have to factor in people at the AD counting the money and it probably can't take very much more time to run a cc than to count bills. Also toss in these factors: I believe that a bounced check costs the university a fee, whereas with a cc there is not a fee - you just a get a message on the machine saying it's declined. Also, with the current approach, HB I assume has to be responsible for wads of cash and if any inadvertently gets lost, that would be problematic. If they had it online, as pretty much everyone else in the U.S. has for paying by CC, their would be no need for any work by the ADs office and they wouldn't have to decipher chicken scratch, and no declined CCs would come to them via the online orders - the declined ones would get stopped right there. Finally, it probably wouldn't be all that hard for the AD to make a CC machine available at the HB table which would also take care of declined cards because you'd know right away. CC machines are cheap and pretty easy to set-up/put anywhere. If not a machine, you can at least have one of those contraceptions that captures the cc number onto a stub so you don't have to write it.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Sept 23, 2007 21:54:44 GMT -5
Wait, we really think the university can't handle credit cards when my dry cleaner (staffed by two people) can run hundreds daily year round?
Let's get real here. You get a machine and you run it through. If you want to do it online easily, you can outsource it in about 2 seconds.
Any incremental loss on interchange is not worth ticking off your fanbase. Oh and here's another novel thought: have the option to put it on your university bill. Is there an issue there? Probably not. Or how about enable it to be paid for with food points or whatever they have now. Or deduct it from your GUSFCU or Riggs account if you have one (no interchange there).
Seriously, Georgetown bills and collects millions of dollars a year for things from tuition to food service to fines and we can't leverage any of that? The only option is by check or cash between 1 and 5 or via mail? I find that extremely hard to believe.
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Sept 24, 2007 7:59:39 GMT -5
I'm just curious as to why everyone is conveniently ignoring the fact that students can buy tickets from Hoya Blue in their complaints? Yes, you can only go down to McD b/w 1-5 to buy tickets. You can also go to the Cafeteria one of two nights a week (and this is the ONLY cafeteria on campus) or to a Hoya Blue meeting. And yes, that's part of the Athletic Department's strategy--they are the ones who suggested it / help fund Hoya Blue.
Also, I'm sure that as we get closer to bball season, Hoya Blue will up the amount of times & places where they sell tickets, making it even more convenient to buy them.
I got no answer to the credit card thing though.
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Post by dajuan on Sept 24, 2007 9:04:59 GMT -5
I'm just curious as to why everyone is conveniently ignoring the fact that students can buy tickets from Hoya Blue in their complaints? Yes, you can only go down to McD b/w 1-5 to buy tickets. You can also go to the Cafeteria one of two nights a week (and this is the ONLY cafeteria on campus) or to a Hoya Blue meeting. And yes, that's part of the Athletic Department's strategy--they are the ones who suggested it / help fund Hoya Blue. Also, I'm sure that as we get closer to bball season, Hoya Blue will up the amount of times & places where they sell tickets, making it even more convenient to buy them. I got no answer to the credit card thing though. People aren't ignoring the Hoya Bleu option, they are just pointing out that the Athletic Department has some deficiencies. Hoya Bleu accepting ticket orders is nice, but it doesn't address most of these deficiencies. The only real deficiency it addresses is the limited hours of operation of the ticket window. While I appreciate what Hoya Bleu does, if I were a student I wouldn't want to hand off cash, or even a check through an intermediary group of students who I don't know and I don't have any recourse over if my order is "lost". (I'm not saying that a member of Hoya Bleu would try to steal from a student, I'm just saying, when you're handling lots of cash or checks and quickly processing orders at a table in the cafeteria it can be easy to misplace things.) Come to think of it, that's another benefit of being able to use a credit card in store or online, you get an immediate printed/printable receipt which you can use in the case that the AD claims to have never received your order. So we're not ignoring Hoya Bleu's hard work, we're just not bringing it up in this thread because it is not one of the Athletic Department's deficiencies in filling the Verizon Center. (I hate the nickname "Phone Booth", so I refuse to use it.)
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Post by mchoya on Sept 24, 2007 16:09:22 GMT -5
I'm just nervous that the Athletic Department won't process my form or it gets lost in the mail. It was sent to my house and my parents mailed the tickets in to the box office. I tried calling up the stadium, but they said they haven't sorted out the forms yet and they couldn't tell me if they had my tickets.
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Sept 24, 2007 19:30:11 GMT -5
What's with the Hoya Bleu thing? Did I miss something?
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Post by LizziebethHoya on Sept 24, 2007 20:38:01 GMT -5
I'm just curious as to why everyone is conveniently ignoring the fact that students can buy tickets from Hoya Blue in their complaints? Yes, you can only go down to McD b/w 1-5 to buy tickets. You can also go to the Cafeteria one of two nights a week (and this is the ONLY cafeteria on campus) or to a Hoya Blue meeting. And yes, that's part of the Athletic Department's strategy--they are the ones who suggested it / help fund Hoya Blue. Also, I'm sure that as we get closer to bball season, Hoya Blue will up the amount of times & places where they sell tickets, making it even more convenient to buy them. I got no answer to the credit card thing though. People aren't ignoring the Hoya Bleu option, they are just pointing out that the Athletic Department has some deficiencies. Hoya Bleu accepting ticket orders is nice, but it doesn't address most of these deficiencies. The only real deficiency it addresses is the limited hours of operation of the ticket window. While I appreciate what Hoya Bleu does, if I were a student I wouldn't want to hand off cash, or even a check through an intermediary group of students who I don't know and I don't have any recourse over if my order is "lost". (I'm not saying that a member of Hoya Bleu would try to steal from a student, I'm just saying, when you're handling lots of cash or checks and quickly processing orders at a table in the cafeteria it can be easy to misplace things.) Come to think of it, that's another benefit of being able to use a credit card in store or online, you get an immediate printed/printable receipt which you can use in the case that the AD claims to have never received your order. So we're not ignoring Hoya Bleu's hard work, we're just not bringing it up in this thread because it is not one of the Athletic Department's deficiencies in filling the Verizon Center. (I hate the nickname "Phone Booth", so I refuse to use it.) To be honest, students are/were more hesitant to hand off their credit card info to a group of students they didn't know. And although this has been brought up, I feel like it is worth repeating again: For students, this is a non-issue. Most students come to leos with their credit card, go in, get cash out of a machine, and come back outside to buy tickets. It's not a big deal.
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Post by Fan Of The Game on Sept 24, 2007 20:47:00 GMT -5
It's a pretty simple process of tellling your parents you need the 19 meal plan plus munch money then going to the treasurer's office to change your meal plan down to something like 7 plus munch money (no one is suggesting you go without munch money), taking the refund check to your bank and then either withdrawing cash or writing a check.
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Post by sead43 on Sept 24, 2007 23:02:26 GMT -5
It's a pretty simple process of tellling your parents you need the 19 meal plan plus munch money then going to the treasurer's office to change your meal plan down to something like 7 plus munch money (no one is suggesting you go without munch money), taking the refund check to your bank and then either withdrawing cash or writing a check. except that i'm pretty sure these days you'd change your meal plan online and you'd get an electronic credit on your student bill, instead of going somewhere in person and getting an actual paper check. georgetown's technology is not that out-of-date. (for what it's worth, there's no longer such a thing as munch money either, although they did bring back what seems like a version of it called flex dollars this year.)
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Post by TrueHoyaBlue on Sept 25, 2007 8:06:04 GMT -5
yeah, but you can still go to student accounts and get a check as a refund on any overpayment on the student bill.
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Post by hoya4ever22 on Sept 25, 2007 8:52:25 GMT -5
I just want to let you guys know that my experience with getting student season tickets was not that bad, I stopped by before 1 in the afternoon and was able to drop off my season ticket application, regardless of the ticket hours. And when I asked about credit cards, it was a decision made by the University. They told the Athletic Department/Ticket Office they did not want them taking credit cards for student season tickets because it exposed the number to too many people, Hoya Blue would have to write the number down and then bring it to the Athletic Department to charge the card. The number could get lost or copied. This is to protect us, not to make it easier or avoiding credit card charges by the athletic Department. When you purchase tickets on the spot your card is charged immediately and when non student season ticket holders purchase tickets over the phone that information immediately goes into a protected database. When I walked away from the AD, i totally understood why they weren't taking credit cards and the explanation seemed valid.
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Post by doublehoya on Sept 25, 2007 10:03:56 GMT -5
I just want to let you guys know that my experience with getting student season tickets was not that bad, I stopped by before 1 in the afternoon and was able to drop off my season ticket application, regardless of the ticket hours. And when I asked about credit cards, it was a decision made by the University. They told the Athletic Department/Ticket Office they did not want them taking credit cards for student season tickets because it exposed the number to too many people, Hoya Blue would have to write the number down and then bring it to the Athletic Department to charge the card. The number could get lost or copied. This is to protect us, not to make it easier or avoiding credit card charges by the athletic Department. When you purchase tickets on the spot your card is charged immediately and when non student season ticket holders purchase tickets over the phone that information immediately goes into a protected database. When I walked away from the AD, i totally understood why they weren't taking credit cards and the explanation seemed valid. This makes sense, but if this was the concern, why not say, if you want to use your cc, you have to go to McD, not Hoya Blue? HB could still sell on a cash/check basis, and those that wanted to use their credit cards could go to McD. I think this would have made sense, but I also think this is a tempest in a teapot -- look how far we have come in 3 years . . . THIS is our big complaint???
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Post by Fan Of The Game on Sept 26, 2007 23:42:50 GMT -5
No munch money!?!!?! I am withdrawing my financial support.
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Sept 27, 2007 1:26:58 GMT -5
Current students: where are ticket sales at now?
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