U.S. Begins Agency Probe Over Tickets

Federal officials launched an investigation Friday of an Atlanta-based travel agency that Michigan football fans said charged them an additional $250 for Rose Bowl tickets they had already purchased.

Department of Transportation officials said it is illegal for a tour operator to boost prices less than 10 days before an event, a rule passed after hundreds of University of Wisconsin fans said they were cheated out of tickets after paying to see the Rose Bowl game in 1994.

“If [the fans] were told on the eve of the game that they’d have to pay more, then under this rule, the requirement would be to refund the entire price of the tour,” said Bill Schulz, a spokesman for the department, which began the inquiry after reading about the fans’ trouble in The Times.

Also, the Michigan attorney general’s office has received fan complaints and begun its own investigation to determine whether Worldwide Sports Travel Inc. or any travel agents selling Worldwide’s tour package may have violated state consumer protection laws by taking purchase money for tickets they didn’t have.

“We’ll do what we can to recover any damages that people may have suffered,” said Chris De Witt, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

Worldwide executives said fans were never under any obligation to pay more money for tickets, but some did so voluntarily just to make sure they had tickets in hand.

The executives said in the end, despite earlier fears, the company delivered tickets as promised to all 300 fans.

“Every single passenger got their tickets,” said David Berstein, director of operations for Worldwide. “No one was under any obligation to pay one dollar more.”

Berstein blamed the shortage on two ticket brokers who failed to provide tickets as promised. Berstein said his company was planning to sue the brokers, whom he declined to name.

The trouble began Tuesday, when about 300 Wolverine fans who had come west in a package tour that included rooms at the Warner Center Marriott and game tickets, were told there were no tickets yet available. The hotel management called police, fearing a riot by the angry fans.

In the days that followed, according to several fans, Worldwide offered a series of different deals that culminated on New Year’s Eve, when security guards escorted fans one by one to see company representatives in a room at the hotel.

Several fans said they were given the option of a $500 refund or paying an additional $250 to obtain a ticket--in addition to the $1,500 most had paid for the tour package, which was supposed to cover the ticket, air fare and lodging.

Berstein confirmed the company asked for an additional $250 for tickets, but only from those who insisted on having a ticket in their hands that day, he said. He had to buy more tickets to replace those he said were not delivered to him as promised, and prices had soared as high as $850 that day, he said.

There was no additional charge for those fans who agreed to wait for delivery of their tickets the morning of the game, the date promised in Worldwide’s contract with them, Berstein said. He was able to buy enough tickets for all of them, he said, when prices began to drop to more reasonable levels on game day.

Berstein said about half his customers paid the $250, while the other half waited the extra day and received their tickets without paying anything extra.

“If you were to go to the hotel right now, you’d see happy people,” he said.

Not among them Friday was August Dusseau, 74, and his family, who on New Year’s Eve paid an additional $1,000 beyond the $6,000 they already had paid for four tickets. He said he was collecting names, tape recordings and other evidence to take action against Worldwide upon his return home to Ann Arbor.

While Dusseau was happy that his beloved Big Blue managed to take home their first national title in 50 years with a 21-16 victory over Washington State, his experiences with Worldwide left him very bitter, he said.

“My daughter bleeds blue. She was devastated by this,” he said. “We’re a very unhappy bunch of campers.”