Fandango and Why I'll Never Use It Again

As everyone knows, The Avengers came out this weekend. Being the poor man that I am, I tried to figure out a way to see the movie without having to spend anything. I remember I had a Fandango gift card from a couple months ago and went online to buy my tickets. I enter my zip code, find The Avengers at my favorite theater, pick a showtime and start checking out. Unlike most websites, Fandango does not allow you to apply the gift card to your account. You simply use it as a credit card and it deducts from your total gift balance. This was my first problem with the site, as having it on your account to use whenever is much easier than tracking down a piece of plastic every time you want to see a movie. It's a small issue, but it was just the beginning. 

Fandango's mascot puppets are simply the "cute" front to a pretty shitty business. 

After applying my gift card to my purchase and filling out all of the necessary info, I click Submit Order. Immediately, I receive an error message saying "There was an error in the order. Your purchase may have gone through, you can check it here". First off, how the hell can that be a legit error message? My tickets were either purchased or not. I follow the link and it led me back to the home page. So yeah, that was a big help. I try to process my order again and, not only did the showtime I was aiming for sell out, but my gift card was no longer in their records and the order could not be processed. At this point I'm getting pretty damn angry and want to punch through my computer screen. I just want to see The F**king Avengers. 

The god of mischief has to be behind this..

I try my order another couple of times for a different showtime. I receive an assortment of error messages, from the previous "not in our records" message to "we cannot place your order right now". Each error message leaves me with no description of the message. I click on the Help link on the Fandango page and it just lists a bunch of frequently asked questions that are completely useless. I look for any way to contact Fandango's customer service and all I find is a form to fill out explaining my problem. I explain my situation (with professional courtesy) and submit my claim. Of course, I will hear back from them in "less than 24 hours". Again this does not solve my problem and pisses me off even more. At this point I feel like a stand-in for The Hulk and have my own Avengers starting up at home. 

The Hulk destroyed New York City when he couldn't get tickets to The Muppets. 

I check the site for a 1-800 number I can call and yell at the representative as though he/she is personally responsible for my frustration. I finally find it, on the back of the gift card mind you, and not on the website itself. I go through a few options and then a robot comes on telling me that all their representatives are busy. I think, okay, this happens with any customer service... service. I then go on to wait nearly 20 minutes, with the same robotic b**ch telling me over and over that everyone is busy. I give up as my patience has completely depleted and hang up the phone. I then think I'll just go and see The Avengers at the theater and pay with a credit card (because I just don't care at this point). I arrive and, of course, it's packed and tickets are sold out for the entire night. So any "convenience" that Fandango was supposed to provide, completely shat on itself and told me to f**k off, you're not going to see the movie. 

Now I am left with nothing but a piece of a plastic that I am not even sure has any value to it. I have another 18 hours or so of hearing back from their customer service team and still not able to see The Avengers. I felt I needed to explain to all of you readers why I, a movie blog writer, has yet to see the movie with the biggest opening of all time. I am insanely pissed off at Fandango and once this issue is resolved, I plan on never using the service again. 

That's all I have to say about that.