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5 Year Season Ticket Deal

edited January 2010 in General Charlton
Slight disquiet over this, after more details were released in the programme yesterday.

The only way to purchase is by cheque or via a credit company Zebra Finance. Steve Kavanagh is quoted as saying "Unfortunately, we have been told by the credit department of the club's merchant card service provider that they will not allow us to take payments for the five year season tickets on credit or debit cards".

This sounds very dubious to me. By purchasing a ST, via the Club (not a merchant card service provider) why can't I pay for those goods with either a credit or debit cart (both of which offer protection)? I can purchase everything else at Charlton via these methods. Surely a debit card is the easiest way for the club to get its money - straight from one account to another with no 3rd party involvement?

My main queries are:-

1) By paying by cheque I have no protection over my £2k investment should the club go into administration in the near future (and to be honest this isn't that far fetched).

2) Who are Zebra finance and what %age interest are they going to charge on payments by installment?

3) Why is SK coming out with such a ridiculous statement about a 3rd party telling the Club how they should or shouldn't receive payments for goods supplied to its customers? What the hell has it got to do with them?

Or am I not seeing the wood for the trees?
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Comments

  • I hadn't heard this as I dont get a programme, but I had spoke to the wife and said that if I paid on the credit card I had some sort of protection if it did all go "Tits Up" and just pay the bill straight off.
    But whatever the reason, that has certainly made my mind up, a one year ticket for me. And if they keep on churning out the sh*te we've watched this week, I might end up buying on a match to match basis.
  • Club's desperate for money -- right now. Worrying
  • [cite]Posted By: T.C.E[/cite]I hadn't heard this as I dont get a programme, but I had spoke to the wife and said that if I paid on the credit card I had some sort of protection if it did all go "Tits Up" and just pay the bill straight off.
    But whatever the reason, that has certainly made my mind up, a one year ticket for me. And if they keep on churning out the sh*te we've watched this week, I might end up buying on a match to match basis.

    If you've got the hump we must be shit mate, your happiest bloke I've met! What next Oggy telling us Sam is rubbish?
  • Zebra seem to do financing for quite a few football clubs. But this doesn't make sense to me, if I pay on my credit card, isn't it my credit card provider that gives me my money back in the 'tits up' scenario? I can see the sense if people are paying by installments, it avoids the club losing out when people decide to default on payments, the risk transfers to Zebra who have basically given you a loan. Mmmm, this is looking much less appetising than I had originally thought.
  • All credit and debit payments to the club, whatever card they are made on, go through one credit supplier, who take a cut. The cut can vary depending on the risk they perceive. For example, they take a bigger cut on season tickets than they do on match tickets. Hence the £5 charge brought in last year for some card transactions. In the case of the five-year ticket, they have told us they are not prepared to handle credit or debit card transactions at all.

    I'm afraid this reflects the wider football economy as well as Charlton, but you can rest assured if they thought we were about to go out of business they wouldn't be handling season tickets either. It's the five-year horizon that is too much for them.

    Why they have excluded debit cards, which in theory are not subject to the same protection as credit cards, I don't understand, but I know Steve Kavanagh has tried everything to work around the problem without success.
  • edited January 2010
    Doesnt sound black and white by any means.
  • edited January 2010
    [cite]Posted By: stilladdicted[/cite]Zebra seem to do financing for quite a few football clubs. But this doesn't make sense to me, if I pay on my credit card, isn't it my credit card provider that gives me my money back in the 'tits up' scenario? I can see the sense if people are paying by installments, it avoids the club losing out when people decide to default on payments, the risk transfers to Zebra who have basically given you a loan. Mmmm, this is looking much less appetising than I had originally thought.

    No, it appears it's the club's merchant card services provider, presumably because it makes them responsible for assessing the risk in providing the service, rather than each card company.

    This isn't at all about us wanting people to pay in instalments and transfer risk to Zebra (who are replacing Premium Credit). As far as we are concerned it's a bloody nuisance.
  • [cite]Posted By: RodneyCharltonTrotta[/cite]Doesnt sound black and white by any means.
    Zing.

    Here every week.
  • edited January 2010
    Cheers Airman
    So basically the merchant card providers have assessed us as a poor risk. That seems prudent when viewed against the wider picture of current football economies. Thus we pay by cheque and hope that any future deals will honour the agreement. Happy to support the club which appears to need some quick cash, but wish it hadn't been presented as a treat for loyal supporters, or am I just getting too cynical?
  • edited January 2010
    [cite]Posted By: stilladdicted[/cite]Cheers Airman
    So basically the merchant card providers have assessed us as a poor risk. That seems prudent when viewed against the wider picture of current football economies. So we pay by cheque and hope that any future deals will be honoured. Happy to support the club which appears to need some quick cash, but wish it hadn't been presented as a treat for loyal supporters, or am I just getting too cynical?

    I think it's a good deal, but let's face it the club wouldn't be offering it now or have made similar offers in the past if they didn't suit its financial objectives.

    Indeed, the bank has changed its stated position since we did the original publicity, so we couldn't have taken that into account or disclosed it at the time.
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  • [cite]Posted By: stilladdicted[/cite]Cheers Airman
    So basically the merchant card providers have assessed us as a poor risk. That seems prudent when viewed against the wider picture of current football economies. Thus we pay by cheque and hope that any future deals will honour the agreement. Happy to support the club which appears to need some quick cash, but wish it hadn't been presented as a treat for loyal supporters, or am I just getting too cynical?

    Future owners would have to still honour it. Just taking something over, doesn't get you out of obligations made by the previous regime (due diligence is there for the new buyer to satisfy themselves that any obligations aren't too onerous). The only thing that you're losing is protection against the club ceasing to exist, which isn't that likely.

    I think the credit card operator is being a bit overly risk averse in this matter, but that's the way of the financial services industry. After years of loaning money to any numbnut that can fill in a form and gambling on shitty foreign debt and shares they're now taking the opposite view. We might hit a happy medium one day. There's nowt the club can do about it.
  • Airman
    i understand what you say regarding the merchant service companies and their desire to protect the card companies from having to guarantee a possible payback to customers in the event of administration ,or even worse,receivership.What i do not understand is that as experienced businessmen they could not work this out before offering the ' wonderful deal for a select 500 season ticket holders'. The whole thing now appears to smack of desperation. maybe if the directors had just said that they needed the input of a million pounds and this was a way to achieve that ,it would have been a more honest route to take instead of disguising it as a reward for loyal fans.
  • edited January 2010
    Thanks for coming back so quickly Airman.

    I'm still not sure about the debit card issue - surely I'm just paying direct from my account into the clubs account? What the hell has it got to do with a credit supplier?

    I also have no problem paying (say) an extra £5 on my CC bill to protect myself against future (God forbid) administration.

    Are we tied to this credit supplier?
  • edited January 2010
    [cite]Posted By: Mortimerician[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: stilladdicted[/cite]Cheers Airman
    So basically the merchant card providers have assessed us as a poor risk. That seems prudent when viewed against the wider picture of current football economies. Thus we pay by cheque and hope that any future deals will honour the agreement. Happy to support the club which appears to need some quick cash, but wish it hadn't been presented as a treat for loyal supporters, or am I just getting too cynical?

    Future owners would have to still honour it. Just taking something over, doesn't get you out of obligations made by the previous regime (due diligence is there for the new buyer to satisfy themselves that any obligations aren't too onerous). The only thing that you're losing is protection against the club ceasing to exist, which isn't that likely.

    Future owners have no obligation to honour season tickets taken out by individuals from a previous regime that have gone into administration.

    Mind you, they'd be mad not to.
  • That's simply not true Addicted (of any company, not just football clubs).

    You take over a company and you're expected to know what its debts and obligations are and you take them on. Otherwise companies would just "sell themselves" to another part of the same group for £1 and magically get out of all that they owe.

    What might happen is if an administrator takes over they could cut a deal with creditors and pay them back a portion of what is owed in order to wipe out debts, but in the case of pre-paid multi year season tickets, there isn't actually any money owed by the club to anyone, just an obligation to let you through the gates for five years, so I can't see any point in the administrator not honouring these. You could argue that the people who lost the last couple of years of the season ticket MIGHT pay again but a) many would not and b) the admin is looking to sort out the financial viability in the short term so increasing future revenue wouldn't really be on their minds.
  • The only way for me to afford it was via the Barclays Football card, and paid it off over the 5 years interest free.

    Alas it's back to one year tickets
  • [cite]Posted By: Addickted[/cite]I'm still not sure about the debit card issue - surely I'm just paying direct from my account into the clubs account? What the hell has it got to do with a credit supplier?
    Sorry Addickted, but that's not the way card payments work. Any company that takes credit or debit card payments has to work with a company known as a "merchant services provider", which is a bit like a clearing house for card payments. When you use your debit card to pay the club, the club sends your card details to their merchant along with those for all the other payments, the merchant pays the club the total value for all those payments, goes off to the various banks to claim the relevant sums of money off them, and then the bank takes the money out of your account.

    The club will get charged either a flat fee or a percentage per transaction depending on the type of card you use. There are a number of different companies that the club could use, but it may be that their own bank provides the service at a preferential rate. Even if they decided they wanted to change, it can prove quite an expensive process, as they may need to replace all the equipment and software that they use, test it and retrain all the staff.
  • [cite]Posted By: fastforward[/cite]Airman
    i understand what you say regarding the merchant service companies and their desire to protect the card companies from having to guarantee a possible payback to customers in the event of administration ,or even worse,receivership.What i do not understand is that as experienced businessmen they could not work this out before offering the ' wonderful deal for a select 500 season ticket holders'. The whole thing now appears to smack of desperation. maybe if the directors had just said that they needed the input of a million pounds and this was a way to achieve that ,it would have been a more honest route to take instead of disguising it as a reward for loyal fans.

    I think you (and others) perhaps have an unrealistic idea of the scale of the administration at Charlton. The only person who would be exploring this issue is the managing-cum-financial director Steve Kavanagh, who is the person negotiating with the bank. Moreover the club's experience of previous schemes of this kind in 1992 and 2001 was that the banks were willing to take credit card payments on them. Indeed, this bank initially led us to believe they were willing to take credit card payments this time around. They have changed their position since we announced the scheme. We don't have the option to change supplier because of the lead time involved.

    The offer has to work for both parties, the club and the fans, but I don't see any inconsistency in this. The club would not be making the offer if it was not good for the business, otherwise it would be acting irrationally. Even free travel to away games, when offered, was a business decision to build the club's reputation and the loyalty of supporters. That didn't meant it wasn't good for fans too.
  • edited January 2010
    [cite]Posted By: Mortimerician[/cite]That's simply not true Addicted (of any company, not just football clubs).

    You take over a company and you're expected to know what its debts and obligations are and you take them on. Otherwise companies would just "sell themselves" to another part of the same group for £1 and magically get out of all that they owe.

    Sorry Morts, but any new company is under no obligation to honour season tickets from the old company.

    You are just a creditor of the old company and should be able to get a %age of your outlay back from the administrator, but your 'debt' is with the old company - not the new one.

    Unless of course you're Ken Bates.
  • edited January 2010
    [cite]Posted By: aliwibble[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: Addickted[/cite]I'm still not sure about the debit card issue - surely I'm just paying direct from my account into the clubs account? What the hell has it got to do with a credit supplier?
    Sorry Addickted, but that's not the way card payments work. Any company that takes credit or debit card payments has to work with a company known as a "merchant services provider", which is a bit like a clearing house for card payments. When you use your debit card to pay the club, the club sends your card details to their merchant along with those for all the other payments, the merchant pays the club the total value for all those payments, goes off to the various banks to claim the relevant sums of money off them, and then the bank takes the money out of your account.

    The club will get charged either a flat fee or a percentage per transaction depending on the type of card you use. There are a number of different companies that the club could use, but it may be that their own bank provides the service at a preferential rate. Even if they decided they wanted to change, it can prove quite an expensive process, as they may need to replace all the equipment and software that they use, test it and retrain all the staff.

    Thanks for that Ali - I wasn't sure of the machinations of merchant sevice providers - I just assumed you paid money to the Club.

    Can the Club take cash? ;-)
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  • Sorry, coins of the realm not accepted........(joking, of course!)

    ;o)
  • I'm glad we have had some clarification, but I wonder if we couldn't have 2 merchant service providers at the same time ?

    The existing one (that is not meeting the club's business need), and another that would be glad of some decent income during a recession.

    How many applications for 5YST's do you think we will actually get?
  • [cite]Posted By: Addickted[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: Mortimerician[/cite]That's simply not true Addicted (of any company, not just football clubs).

    You take over a company and you're expected to know what its debts and obligations are and you take them on. Otherwise companies would just "sell themselves" to another part of the same group for £1 and magically get out of all that they owe.

    Sorry Morts, but any new company is under no obligation to honour season tickets from the old company.

    You are just a creditor of the old company and should be able to get a %age of your outlay back from the administrator, but your 'debt' is with the old company - not the new one.

    Unless of course you're Ken Bates.

    Addickted - reading this, I think Morts is talking about the club being bought as a going concern (hence the requirement to fulfill the commitments), whereas you're talking about the club having gone into administration & it's assets having been bought by another (new) company.
  • surely the main point of getting a five year season ticket would be to save money but having to pay it off on a credit deal not of your own choice would mean that it would end up being almost pointless and I doubt there are a lot of us with a spare £1500 laying about the place these days.

    Airman do you have any idea roughly how much extra the finance deal would add to the total cost?
  • [cite]Posted By: Valiantphil[/cite]I'm glad we have had some clarification, but I wonder if we couldn't have 2 merchant service providers at the same time ?
    Phil, the merchant service providers are HUGE companies, and every credit or debit card payment taken in this country has to go through one of them. Quite frankly the club needs them more than they need the club.

    Whilst technically it is possible to have merchant relationships with 2 different providers, it wouldn't be in the club's interest to do so. The larger the number of transactions a company puts through, the better a deal they can strike with the merchant on the transaction charges, so splitting the payments they take between two companies would cost the club far more than sticking with just the one. And then there's the cost of the additional software or equipment for the new merchant, and there's no guarantee that the club would be able to find another merchant willing to take on the risk of accepting payments for the 5 year tickets from a brand new customer.
  • I don't have the 5-year interest table to hand, but the extra cost of paying for a £425 ticket over eight months is £32.44, so I assume the cost of buying the same thing for five years over the same period would be £162.20, i.e. total cost £2,287.20 as opposed to £2,125.

    However, there's nothing to stop you getting a personal loan from your own bank on terms that you decide and paying the club by cheque.

    The APR is 21.9%, but bear in mind you are not borrowing the money for a full year.
  • [cite]Posted By: Airman Brown[/cite]The APR is 21.9%, but bear in mind you are not borrowing the money for a full year.

    And can you pay off the loan in full within that year - without incurring interest?
  • I've no idea. It's probably a question for the helpline when the literature comes out.
  • Call me mad but I am doing it, if a building society cheque is acceptable
  • [cite]Posted By: Airman Brown[/cite]I've no idea. It's probably a question for the helpline when the literature comes out.

    Rick, will application forms for 5 year tickets be posted out to existing Season Ticket holders automatically or do I have to specifically apply to the Club direct (or via website)?
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