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Comment by ivraatiems | Hacker News Reader

These sites are super scummy, but it does feel a little like the author is being willfully ignorant. I don't know why he didn't dispute the charge/request a chargeback.

Also, I went to the site, and here's what I saw:

First, you get a list of tickets to choose from. There is a small but clear "ea" under the price: https://i.imgur.com/erAV4W7.png

Then, once you select "buy", the order summary clearly says "each" or "x4" every time the price is listed: https://i.imgur.com/58N6Fne.png

Once you select a method of payment, the order summary looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/IFfvVwC.png

For the record, that says "total charge" in bold with the exact total amount you pay.

And before the place order button is: https://i.imgur.com/y2K4LrF.png

Unless that amount is somehow a lie, I'm not sure how this is misleading. It is very clear what the total, final charge is, it says it in multiple places, and it is consistent.

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The article told you: because the writer tried to do the polite thing and explain the transaction had been a mistake, and cancel it. The ticket company resubmitted the charge 4 times while the writer was trying to negotiate with a chat system.

Also, the writer is nearly 80. That tiny 'ea' might not be clear to him, and in any case the layout is a very obvious antipattern. Let me make it very simple: any time a customer needs to do mental arithmetic prior to a transaction, it's an antipattern. Would you buy groceries somewhere they didn't announce thte total before you paid? Of course you wouldn't.

This is your zero-trust, max-security world folks. It's a kafkaesque digital prison which literally promotes adversariality.

Yes, it's bad they did that. But while the tiny "ea" might not be good, the order confirmation page is extremely clear, includes all the totals you expect, and it seems like the author just clicked past it.

They should have done the morally right thing and refunded him, but, I am just not sure how much clearer the UI really needs to be here. It says the total price multiple times in multiple places and says multiple times "we will charge you this amount and we will not give it back."

The source was posted 4 days ago, I wonder if they changed things since then, but I agree the screenshots you posted seem pretty Normal. And that's depressing because a $110 surcharge on each ticket being normal sucks.

Hmm, they certainly could've changed it. And Wayback Machine wouldn't be effective for a checkout page.

There's also a 7.50 electronic transfer, what is that even?!

Its a charge to keep the internet tubes free from rodents, rust, and debris. I think they use WD-40.

Haha

especially depressing when you know they also take 15% from the seller too, so thats another $50

Are there any web stores anywhere that don't list per unit prices like this?

If I go to amazon.com and add four umbrellas to my cart, it shows the subtotal at the bottom, but the price listed is the per unit price. Doesn't even include "ea".

Is that what we want? It's usually practice to have the unit price and amount on any invoice or receipt, this isn't something they invented to trick you. Honestly it's easier for me to reason with unit prices than totals.

The grand total, while bold, is also a smaller font than the per-ticket price.

It is? It doesn't look that way to me in the screenshots. The "$XXX ea" stuff in the first screenshot is from a previous page.

Let's see how readable the "ea" is when you're 80.

yeah i was thinking the same thing, at the very least it's not designed with accessibility in mind and could easily trick people who are more vision impaired.

Certainly, but I’m guessing you are not the James Taylor core demo.

The only reason to display the subtotal (a subtotal being "the total of one set of a larger group of figures to be added") as "$387 x4" is to deceive the customer.

Another reason is that people buy different numbers of tickets, yet decide based on the individual price.

I may be buying 2, 4, or 6 tickets but I’m going to pick the seat location based on the individual seat price. So I want to see if the seat is $998 seat or a $700 or a $2000 seat. I think the decision point is based on the item price.

In the author's defence, they do start the article by calling themselves an idiot.

Thanks for doing the research!

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