Guru event ticket undisclosed fees

[Jonathan Lee]

Hello BPers!

I had a poor experience with a real estate guru's sales tactics recently. As I prefer to steer clear of defamation (I have seen a few cases of borderline slander here on BP) whenever possible, I'm omitting the name of the guru for now. I am more interested in discussing the particular sales tactic that concerns me to see if anybody else has run into this and if it is even legal.

I recently bought a real estate education package that was said to include tickets to an event thrown by the guru who sold the package. After gaining access to the educational material, I received an email congratulating (ugh sales, am I right?) me on the purchase of the tickets. The email stated that the tickets were "100% paid for" and that I only needed to go online to RSVP to confirm that I would attend the event. Clicking through to the RSVP form, I see that additional payment was required to RSVP.

I inquired about the fee and was told that it was in response to previous events in which ticket-holders didn't show up, so they felt the materials that had been printed for the attendees amounted to waste. I somehow doubt environmental concerns are driving this seat reservation fee.

Now I understand that because the ticket was offered as part of a package, there will be a higher rate of no-shows due to interest in only a piece of the package. However, I can think of no other "ticket" that can't be used until additional fees (that were not disclosed up front) are paid. The closest example I can think of would be a tax levied by certain international airports and not collected with the ticket sale itself, but even in that case, the airline generally discloses that a fee will be owed at the airport.

So far, I'm having trouble getting my money back. Is this even legal?

Jonathan