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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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?
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.
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.
Here every week.
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?
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.
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.
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'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?
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.
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.
Alas it's back to one year tickets
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.
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.
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.
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? ;-)
;o)
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?
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.
Airman do you have any idea roughly how much extra the finance deal would add to the total cost?
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.
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.
And can you pay off the loan in full within that year - without incurring interest?
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)?