Paid 26,000 USD, tickets not received
I had been a guest of Paddock Club at Formula1 races multiple times before, with other providers (not F1 Experience). This year, formula1.com directed my request to F1 Experience, and I booked tickets with F1 Experience for 26,000 USD and paid in full months before the event date. In the contract, it was clearly mentioned that the tickets will be shipped (quote: “Ship To: (address)”). In every previous year, tickets had been shipped to me by other providers, and I had happily attended Paddock Club and enjoyed the race. F1 Experience even updated my shipping address some months prior to the event. After hearing nothing from them until 2 weeks prior to the race, they sent me a message that I would "have to" pick up the tickets multiple miles away from the event, in the middle of the city which was widely closed for traffic, due to the race. I objected and requested the shipping of the tickets, as it had been agreed to months before. They refused. Instead, their support staff tried to gaslight me by telling various ever-changing stories why the shipping of the tickets was, allegedly, impossible. All of these stories were untrue. The reasons they presented me (in chronogolical order): - First, they claimed they were unable to ship the tickets due to “DHL restrictions”. Fact: Not true. There are no “DHL restrictions”. - After that, they claimed they were unable to ship the tickets because it was “too late” (2 weeks prior to the race). Fact: Not true. DHL / Fedex / UPS shipping time to me: 1-2 days. Even if shipping from anywhere else, even if from the remotest island in the world, it would have taken max. 7 days. - After that, they claimed the tickets would be “held in customs” and therefore cannot be sent. Fact: It’s normal to pay customs for a shipment, nothing to worry about and no problem at all. I would have paid any amount of customs charges. I never incited them to do a customs violation or anything else - it sounds like they were implying this. (Apart from that, all previous' years' tickets were not "held in customs".) - Finally, they just flat out refused to ship the tickets and claimed that they were not obliged to to so. Fact: Not true. In their contract, signed by them and me, it states “shipping”. It was very telling that the supposed reason for non-shipping kept changing whenever the previous pack of untruths fell apart. Every email from their so-called Guest Services dripped with condescension - arrogant, belittling, and talking down to me as if I were clueless, like talking to a stupid child instead of a customer. Instead of doing the obvious, just sending my tickets after I had asked multiple times (even begged them) to do it, they decided not to send them - without any reason, and even brush me off in a very disgusting manner. Probably they wanted to save the max. 100 USD courier fees and not send them to me (the customer who was purchased two of the most expensive tickets for this race). Final result: I didn’t receive the tickets. I didn’t attend the event. I paid 26,000 USD for nothing. So what was supposed to be a fun holiday weekend (as every year), turned out to be a nightmare, cancelled less than 2 weeks prior to the event. After the event, it felt that they even tried to make fun of my loss by sending me multiple messages, asking if I had enjoyed the race, if I wanted to book again for next year (!). This ill-treatment, the felt post-race mockery and disparagement was the worst of the whole situation, even worse than paying money for nothing. Actually, I was planning to go to Paddock Club evey year, as it has been very enjoyable in all last years (actually one of the best events in the world), possibly for at least the next 20 - 30 years. Multiply this by 20,000 to 30,000 USD ticket cost per year, and you can calculate the losses that F1 Experience will incur by mis-treatment of their high paying customer (me). Obviously the staff that wanted to save the courier fee (see above) underestimated this completely: Well done, for a one-time gain of 26,000, they are losing hundreds of thousands. All this misery could have been avoided if F1 Experience had just made the expense of max. 100 USD and sent me the tickets I had paid for. Tickets would have arrived, I would have attended this year and in all future years. So be very careful when booking anything through F1 Experiences. Be prepared to lose everything and to be even mocked by their employees after that. EDIT: It was a 3 day package for Paddock Club for 2 persons, with some additional stuff. So approx. 13,000 USD per person. No hotel or anything like that. --- PS: I do not wish to be doxxed with personal details like my name, country or anything else, in case anybody answers to this review. In case you (F1 Experience) publish my personal details in a possible answer to this review, legal action will follow.