This weekend is the last that J and I will have together before his parents return to China. We decided to take full advantage of this with a dinner & theater date last night — we were finally going to watch Wicked on Broadway!

After a delicious dinner at Thalia, we made our way over to the Gershwin Theatre and handed over our tickets to the doorman. He scanned the tickets…

“I’m sorry. Please go to that gentleman at the box office and tell him these tickets are marked as fraud.”

😯

We had purchased these tickets on StubHub, which we had used for numerous other events in the past. We had never had a problem before!

The man at the box office was apologetic as well. He told us that these fake tickets from StubHub had only begun popping up in the past few weeks, and that he had dealt with 6 other parties with the same problem that night alone. He gave us instructions on what to tell StubHub to get our money back, and asked if we would still be interested in purchasing tickets for the night’s performance?

I was LIVID. I had been especially looking forward to the show, knowing that we were sitting in the orchestra section, row A.

I was ready to turn around and head home, but J made me reconsider. He pointed out that we had been planning and looking forward to our date, and that we shouldn’t let some scumbag scammer ruin the night. Plus, the tickets that the box office offered were 40% off the regular price! We would be sitting in row M, but it was still in the orchestra section and it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.

And as you can see, our seats were pretty spectacular:

I made sure to give StubHub a call as soon as I got a spare moment this morning. And what exceptional customer service! I was transferred a few times, but that was expected and each person was more apologetic than the last.

And get this.

Not only did they fully refund our purchase… (including all service and delivery fees)

They asked us how much we paid for our replacement tickets…and gave us a StubHub credit for that exact amount!

I know that we will definitely be using the credit in the future (a Knicks playoff game, perhaps? *knock on wood*), so it’s almost like we got to watch Wicked for free!

As for the show itself? I liked it a lot, but I didn’t think it was quite as omg-TERRIFIC-FABULOUS-SENSATIONAL! as my friends have made it out to be over the years. I still have yet to see a musical that can beat my all-time favorite: The Phantom of the Opera. (I’ve watched it about a dozen times!)