View Full Version : The USSF World Cup tickets email has arrived!
Jimbo
14 Dec 2005, 05:39 PM
Honestly, nowhere on the form does it expressly say that the number listed was the only acceptable fax.
Here is what it says:
Completed order forms with valid method of payment must be received via fax or mail at U.S. Soccer before Wednesday, January 4, 2006 at 5 p.m. CT.
OFFICIAL MAILING ADDRESS: U.S. Soccer Federation
ATTN: Ticket Department
1801 South Prairie Avenue
Chicago, IL 60616
OFFICIAL FAX: (312) 528-7049
• U.S. Soccer strongly recommends submitting your order via a method with delivery confirmation (i.e. fax, DHL, Certified Mail, FedEx, etc.). Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax or mail (i.e. in person, by courier, through e-mail, etc.). Orders will be filled on a first-come-first-serve basis and orders received after the U.S. Soccer allotment is sold will be placed on the U.S. Soccer Waiting List until all preceding ticket orders are confirmed. Please note that ticket order forms with insufficient postage, invalid payment or that are incomplete, unclear or damaged will not be processed.
All it says is that "Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax or mail," and it never says that fax numbers other than the "OFFICIAL FAX" cannot be used. It does expressly phohibit some things: couriers, for example. But it never expressly prohibits faxing the office fax line. If it did, you'd have a beef. It doesn't, so you don't.
What Bonji did was well within the rules as set forth in the instructions. I'm sorry others of you didn't think of it. Neither did I.
I suppose we'll find out if he broke the rules when USSF decides whether the "Official" fax number is the only one they'll accept. They have an "official" address too, so if you had sent it somewhere else it wouldn't have counted, right? You're right that the blame lays at USSF's feet. Their instructions implied that the "official" delivery routes were the only ones that are acceptable. You had to e-mail or fax, you couldn't bring it in person or e-mail it. And the "official" fax number is the one they distributed to everyone. At this point I would not be surprised to see USSF disqualify everyone who used the non-official fax number. Getting a receipt to notify you that your application arrived doesn't guarantee anything with this bunch.
Etienne_72772
14 Dec 2005, 05:41 PM
Honestly, nowhere on the form does it expressly say that the number listed was the only acceptable fax.
Here is what it says:
Completed order forms with valid method of payment must be received via fax or mail at U.S. Soccer before Wednesday, January 4, 2006 at 5 p.m. CT.
OFFICIAL MAILING ADDRESS: U.S. Soccer Federation
ATTN: Ticket Department
1801 South Prairie Avenue
Chicago, IL 60616
OFFICIAL FAX: (312) 528-7049
• U.S. Soccer strongly recommends submitting your order via a method with delivery confirmation (i.e. fax, DHL, Certified Mail, FedEx, etc.). Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax or mail (i.e. in person, by courier, through e-mail, etc.). Orders will be filled on a first-come-first-serve basis and orders received after the U.S. Soccer allotment is sold will be placed on the U.S. Soccer Waiting List until all preceding ticket orders are confirmed. Please note that ticket order forms with insufficient postage, invalid payment or that are incomplete, unclear or damaged will not be processed.
All it says is that "Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax or mail," and it never says that fax numbers other than the "OFFICIAL FAX" cannot be used. It does expressly phohibit some things: couriers, for example. But it never expressly prohibits faxing the office fax line. If it did, you'd have a beef. It doesn't, so you don't.
What Bonji did was well within the rules as set forth in the instructions. I'm sorry others of you didn't think of it. Neither did I.
However, to proclaim someone unethical who broke no rules is not only incorrect, but an unfounded attack on their character.
I understand you're all upset, and you should be: with the USSF. For crying out loud, this is the second decade Internet age, and they're still taking orders by fax? And to make it worse, they're not even remotely prepared for the amount of traffic they KNOW they're going to get.
In any case, you all are barking at the wrong person.
Bonji broke no rules. The USSF, however, ********ed up the whole process.
I call BullSh|t. BY posting that as the only number and the "Official Fax", they are absolutely intimating that this is the fax number to send it to. The list of things not to do only reinforces in a person's mind that anything not done the way they prescribe will be rejected. If they wanted it faxed to other fax numbers, they should have stated so on the form. As it is, it is completely inequitable (read--unfair) for the USSF to accept those applications at the expense of others who played by the rules.
Notice, I blame USSF. I don't think anyone did anything unethical. Hell, I would have pushed over my own grandmother to get tickets to the games (OK, that may be a bit unethical...)
blkbrnrvr
14 Dec 2005, 05:42 PM
I call BullSh|t. BY posting that as the only number and the "Official Fax", they are absolutely intimating that this is the fax number to send it to. The list of things not to do only reinforces in a person's mind that anything not done the way they prescribe will be rejected. If they wanted it faxed to other fax numbers, they should have stated so on the form. As it is, it is completely inequitable (read--unfair) for the USSF to accept those applications at the expense of others who played by the rules.
Notice, I blame USSF. I don't think anyone did anything unethical. Hell, I would have pushed over my own grandmother to get tickets to the games (OK, that may be a bit unethical...)
It depends on how nice she is. :D
If they wanted people to Fax to other numbers, wouldn't they have posted those numbers? :confused:
I'm not getting on anybody, just wondering.
Perhaps they meant that, but later realized they never expressly prohibited using other numbers, and so they were stuck.
Hard to say.
But all of this "ethics" discussion is totally unfounded.
MikeLastort2
14 Dec 2005, 05:44 PM
It looks like people who sent to the unofficial fax are out of luck.
See this thread I just started (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=278977)
Atouk
14 Dec 2005, 05:46 PM
Honestly, nowhere on the form does it expressly say that the number listed was the only acceptable fax.All it says is that "Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax or mail," and it never says that fax numbers other than the "OFFICIAL FAX" cannot be used.Your whole argument depends on whether any meaning is to be given to the word "OFFICIAL", doesn't it? If that is the only official fax (it's the only one listed as such), sending it to another fax machine might not be any more an official submission of an application than sending it to the wrong address.
To read it the way you have ("nowhere on the form does it expressly say that the number listed was the only acceptable fax") means you have construed the word "OFFICIAL" as being meaningless. However, if one presumes they meant something by it (rather than including a meaningless word), would it mean anything other than it was the only fax number through which you could submit the form as part of this particular pre-sale?
I call BullSh|t. BY posting that as the only number and the "Official Fax", they are absolutely intimating that this is the fax number to send it to. The list of things not to do only reinforces in a person's mind that anything not done the way they prescribe will be rejected. If they wanted it faxed to other fax numbers, they should have stated so on the form. As it is, it is completely inequitable (read--unfair) for the USSF to accept those applications at the expense of others who played by the rules.
Notice, I blame USSF. I don't think anyone did anything unethical. Hell, I would have pushed over my own grandmother to get tickets to the games (OK, that may be a bit unethical...)
Golly. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. ;)
You cannot assume what the USSF meant. You can only follow the word of what they said. What they said was that faxes were accepted. What they didn't say was that faxes sent to other USSF numbers would be disqualified.
Add to that the fact that they did expressly state that other forms of delivery would not be accepted, and I gotta say, Bonji and others who sent to alternate (read: other) fax numbers did nothing wrong.
Cannon
14 Dec 2005, 05:50 PM
Golly. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. ;)
You cannot assume what the USSF meant. You can only follow the word of what they said. What they said was that faxes were accepted. What they didn't say was that faxes sent to other USSF numbers would be disqualified.
Add to that the fact that they did expressly state that other forms of delivery would not be accepted, and I gotta say, Bonji and others who sent to alternate (read: other) fax numbers did nothing wrong.
I hate lawyers.
Etienne_72772
14 Dec 2005, 05:53 PM
Golly. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. ;)
You cannot assume what the USSF meant. You can only follow the word of what they said. What they said was that faxes were accepted. What they didn't say was that faxes sent to other USSF numbers would be disqualified.
Add to that the fact that they did expressly state that other forms of delivery would not be accepted, and I gotta say, Bonji and others who sent to alternate (read: other) fax numbers did nothing wrong.
OK--let's follow what they did say: "OFFICIAL FAX" and only posted one number. Doesn't this imply that other fax numbers are unofficial and would not be acceptable? EDIT: It actually is more than an implication. It is not "implied"--by using the word "Official" they do mean that other fax numbers are unofficial would not be accepted. THis is exactly how I read it. I stand by that reading...
Shibb
14 Dec 2005, 05:53 PM
You do realize there are still other ways to get tickets, right? Read my previous post...I applied for tickets to probably the least sought after match.
Not that it really matters, but this will probably be the toughest ticket to get... just because it's the smallest venue in our group (and maybe in the whole WC). The FiFA/Germany website shows the capacity for Nürnberg as:
Gross capacity - 41,926
Total Seating - 36,898
Group Stage - 32,341
Round of 16 - 31,995
I put 8% of Group Stage capacity as 2,587.
Compare to Gelsenkirchen at 43,920 (8% = 3,513) for the Czech Republic
and Kaiserslautern at 37,084 (8% = 2,966) for Italy. Ok, in reality I expect Italy tickets to be harder to come by in the black market, but through official channels I see the Ghana game as being the toughest ticket.
Still, no one knows what algorithm, if any, USSF will use to dole out tickets. Maybe they'll give priority for people willing to pay for more matches, versus breaking up blocks of tickets. Maybe they'll just throw them all in the air and take the ones that land on top. I doubt they have a coherent plan, based on past actions.
BTW, Nürnberg is a very small cities, without other big cities close by, and I heard on a Brit broadcast that the hotels there are already fully booked. It's going to be nuts when England plays T&T there.
MikeLastort2
14 Dec 2005, 05:53 PM
Golly. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. ;)
You cannot assume what the USSF meant. You can only follow the word of what they said. What they said was that faxes were accepted. What they didn't say was that faxes sent to other USSF numbers would be disqualified.
Add to that the fact that they did expressly state that other forms of delivery would not be accepted, and I gotta say, Bonji and others who sent to alternate (read: other) fax numbers did nothing wrong.
Faxes sent to another number is another "form of delivery."
Hell, I thought about trying to e-mail my application in when I couldn't get through, but figured it wouldn't work. That's why I sent via FedEx.
People who faxed their applications to 312-808-1301 cheated. There's absolutely no other way to look at it.
Your whole argument depends on whether any meaning is to be given to the word "OFFICIAL", doesn't it? If that is the only official fax (it's the only one listed as such), sending it to another fax machine might not be any more an official submission of an application than sending it to the wrong address.
To read it the way you have ("nowhere on the form does it expressly say that the number listed was the only acceptable fax") means you have construed the word "OFFICIAL" as being meaningless. However, if one presumes they meant something by it (rather than including a meaningless word), would it mean anything other than it was the only fax number through which you could submit the form as part of this particular pre-sale?
They also called FedEx "mail," so to infer things from their use of language is sketchy, at best.
I think you and I both know the implication of the word "official." Unfortunately, what's implied is always beaten by what's expressed.
And to start slandering someone as unethical based on something as flimsy as a personal inference isn't so cool, either.
They made a fat mess of the whole thing, that's for damn sure.
I hate lawyers.
Language geeks are worse, though. :D
OK--let's follow what they did say: "OFFICIAL FAX" and only posted one number. Doesn't this imply that other fax numbers are unofficial and would not be acceptable? EDIT: It actually is more than an implication. It is not "implied"--by using the word "Official" they do mean that other fax numbers are unofficial would not be accepted. THis is exactly how I read it. I stand by that reading...
It's still an implication and an inference and the two rarely meet perfectly.
Etienne_72772
14 Dec 2005, 05:56 PM
They also called FedEx "mail," so to infer things from their use of language is sketchy, at best.
I think you and I both know the implication of the word "official." Unfortunately, what's implied is always beaten by what's expressed.
And to start slandering someone as unethical based on something as flimsy as a personal inference isn't so cool, either.
They made a fat mess of the whole thing, that's for damn sure.
I posted this above. It is more than an implication. By using the word "Official" they are expressly indicating that other fax numbers are unofficial, and are not acceptable...
MikeLastort2
14 Dec 2005, 05:59 PM
Language geeks are worse, though. :D
What's funny is that Atouk is a lawyer and is arguing that using the "unofficial" fax was inappropriate.
Faxes sent to another number is another "form of delivery."
Hell, I thought about trying to e-mail my application in when I couldn't get through, but figured it wouldn't work. That's why I sent via FedEx.
People who faxed their applications to 312-808-1301 cheated. There's absolutely no other way to look at it.
No, it says, exactly: "Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax or mail."
Fax is one form of delivery, mail is another.
If it said, "Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax to the official fax number or mail," you'd have a point. It doesn't.
What's funny is that Atouk is a lawyer and is arguing that using the "unofficial" fax was inappropriate.
I know that Atouk is a lawyer.
Lawyers disagree all the time.
Look, I didn't get through, either. I want to go to Germany, too. I just think that Bonji was unfairly attacked as "unethical."
MikeLastort2
14 Dec 2005, 06:02 PM
No, it says, exactly: "Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax or mail."
Fax is one form of delivery, mail is another.
If it said, "Orders will NOT be accepted through any delivery method other than fax to the official fax number or mail," you'd have a point. It doesn't.
Says you. As far as I'm concerned, people who sent their application to any number other than the official one are cheaters. It seems as if US Soccer agrees.
MikeLastort2
14 Dec 2005, 06:04 PM
I know that Atouk is a lawyer.
Lawyers disagree all the time.
Look, I didn't get through, either. I want to go to Germany, too. I just think that Bonji was unfairly attacked as "unethical."
Not me. Sending to another fax is completely unethical. It's abusing the rules, and I sincerly hope that doing so will cause applications sent to the non official fax number to be denied.