Fraudulent purchases blamed in Chiefs season ticket holder presale fiasco

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) — The AFC’s eventual championship game in Atlanta turned into controversy on Wednesday.

It’s because of a Ticketmaster mess that left season ticket holders on the sidelines when they were supposed to have access to a priority presale.

Late Wednesday, the chiefs sent an explanation. Someone, somewhere handed out a pre-sale code they weren’t supposed to share. They didn’t say who or how, but the outcome affected season ticket holders for both teams likely to play the game. The tickets were returned to the pool in the middle of the afternoon.

Jesse Leimkuehler received his Chiefs presale code via email with a set time to buy Wednesday: 1 p.m.

The different ticket tiers basically had to be chosen as the day progressed, he explained.

But, when the time came, he received an unwanted response.

When I tried to hit six tickets, which was the most you could get, there was nothing available, Leimkuehler described. I thought, okay. Well, I just need to get smaller amounts. And, I went down to a ticket and there were still no tickets there. It’s as if they were all gone.

He was not the only one. Bills fans complained about it on Twitter because the game, if played, would be Chiefs vs Bills.

A viewer with a 10 hour slot wrote to KCTV5 that he must be queuing up behind over 2000 buyers then 20 minutes later found no seats comparable to my seats at Arrowhead for less than $696 each. They were all resale tickets, he said.

Chiefs season ticket holders are assigned their own ticketing agents, so Jesse contacted his. He received a text response with an email address to raise his concerns with senior management.

But he had no real answers, Leimkuehler said. And, I kinda felt bad for him because, on some level, I knew he was just the messenger.

He also knew the ticket agents were probably inundated with questions, as tailgating buddies had been texting him all morning about having similar issues.

An hour and a half later, his agent sent another text, saying: Everything should be back to normal now if you want to review other options.

And so, I went to the site, logged in using the same code to get out and check out, and there were tickets everywhere, Leimkuehler said.

He got his six tickets for only about $40 more per piece than his usual price for the Arrowhead game.

A Chiefs spokesperson sent out this statement Wednesday night explaining the root of the problem:

Chiefs Season Ticket members received a unique presale code that was exclusive to their Season Ticket member account. At the start of the presale, Ticketmaster noticed that a presale access code that was not eligible for use had been distributed without consent. Tickets purchased under this code have been refunded and returned to the season ticket presale. These tickets remain available for Season Subscribers to purchase on Chiefs.com using their exclusive password emailed to them.

Leimkuehler has friends in Atlanta and has all of his travel plans already in play, though that won’t happen unless the Chiefs and Bills win their next games. He’s ready to go wherever the Chiefs play and doesn’t blame them for it.

My wife got involved in the whole Taylor Swift fiasco when it happened, Leimkuehler said. So, I’m not a huge Ticketmaster fan and I think I’m even less of a Ticketmaster fan now.

When we checked tickets at 7 p.m., there were still plenty of pre-sale tickets for season ticket holders in the $200-$700 range.

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