Man, I am so pissed off at the National Arts Centre right now. Did you know they have a policy whereby they can revoke tickets you’ve paid for?

Here’s what happened.

In April, we got a flyer in the mail from the NAC advertising that subscriptions for next season were now on sale. Sir Monkeypants and I talked it over and decided to buy a subscription for their kids’ series of concerts. The series runs five times a year on Sundays, and there are four showings on each of the Sundays – 3 English and 1 French.

I logged on to their website on April 24th and found out that the first two English subscriptions were sold out, but there was still room in the third one. So we bought a subscription to all five concerts, and I thought that was that.

But no!

Yesterday, someone from the NAC called to let me know that they would not be honouring our subscription purchase. It seems that last season’s subscription holders have priority on tickets. They have until May 2 to renew. Enough people renewed their subscriptions that our purchase was bumped out. We’re out of luck, no tickets for us.

I don’t get this at all.

First of all, if they wanted to give subscription holders priority, why didn’t they, oh I don’t know, GIVE THEM PRIORITY? That is, only open up ticket sales to them at first, then open them to the general public once the renewal date was passed? Why let anyone order tickets online, when really, not all purchasers are treated equal?

And secondly, why didn’t they make it clear on their website that what I was purchasing was not, in fact, tickets, but rather a spot on the waiting list, and that my transaction would only maybe possibly result in actual tickets? And if, in fact, all I was doing was getting in a queue for any non-renewals that MIGHT become available — WHY DID THEY CHARGE MY CREDIT CARD?

Shady, NAC, very shady. How nice to know you’ll be refunding the purchase I made WEEKS AGO. I’m sure my credit card company will be most generous about refunding the interest, too.

Thirdly, don’t you think the timing of this cancellation of our tickets is weird? It’s been over two months since we bought the tickets and the date for renewals passed. How long did it take them to figure out that they had oversold the event? Shouldn’t they have known on May 3 that there was a problem? Shouldn’t they have contacted us immediately to let us know that there had been a computer error or human error?

(And speaking of which, an APOLOGY WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE.)

I hate to seem all cynical but I feel like what maybe happened is that either a) someone more important than me and my little family called up and asked for tickets, and so they looked at the last person to buy tickets and bumped them, or b) someone who forgot to renew called up and screamed and screamed, and squeaky wheel and all that, and so they bumped us. But either way, it feels kind of personal.

I’m so angry at them right now. And you know what really sucks? The NAC calls me around 10 times a year asking me for donations or trying to convince me to buy a subscription. They are by far the number one source of sales calls in this household. And yet, this is how they treat us when we actually DO buy something from them. I’m pretty much ready to rank the NAC up there with ROGERS CABLE in terms of customer service, that’s how irate I am.

And trust me, NAC, that is NOT GOOD for you.

I really, really feel sorry for the next NAC person who calls to ask me for a donation, or to buy something. REALLY SORRY.