When the Games were postponed last year, CoSport reimbursed its customers – but only for the face value of the seats, not the 20% handling fee the company charged for each ticket. The theory was then that fans decided not to attend an event that could still happen.
Now that ticket buyers no longer have the option to attend, fans who took a wait-and-see approach last year are wondering if CoSport will withhold the surcharges again – which for some fans amounts to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. not – of their repayments, and when those repayments, in part or in part, will revert to their accounts. Some buyers who repaid this past summer said they only received their money back in January.
“You put your money there and hold it for a long time – a lot of people just can’t,” said Priscilla Metcalf, an ophthalmologist from Wharton, Texas, who spent more than $ 5,000 on tickets and was not optimistic about getting her money back in time. to get. “This is a serious concern, especially in these economic times, when money can be tight for many people.”
Treese spent nearly $ 10,000 on tickets for herself and her daughter after arranging a whirlwind schedule of 27 Olympic events in nine days. Like other CoSport customers, she received an email from the company over the weekend – shortly after the decision to ban foreign fans became official – but was unhappy that it was light in the details.
“CoSport currently holds a lot of responsibility, and I hope they do the right thing by their customers,” Treese said. “If we do it right, we will repay 100% of our money.”
Alan Dizdarevic, a co-CEO of CoSport and the son of the founder, Sead Dizdarevic, said on Saturday that the company is waiting for the International Olympic Committee and the organizers in Tokyo to finalize their repayment policy. He said CoSport is awaiting details on how much money Tokyo organizers will return to its company, and a timeline for when that will happen before the company can return the money to its customers.
“It’s their decision,” Alan Dizdarevic said of the Olympic organizers. “We can not say how they determine the policy.”