Get Your Refunds from the Boston Grand Prix Now

I should've known.  We just can't have nice things...

I bought two tickets and pit passes for the announced Boston Grand Prix Indycar race for Memorial Day weekend in Boston earlier this year.  There had been various wranglings back and forth between the event organizer and various permitting bodies but I always thought that for the benefit of the city a deal would get done and the event would happen.

I was wrong.

Today the organizer pulled out due to yet another last minute permitting hurdle that was put in front of them by the city or city hangers on (http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/herald_bulldog/2016/04/labor_day_indycar_race_called_off_in_boston).  Complaints about noise, traffic, disturbance of the landfill dirt that some of the roads were built on, and on and on and on...there were certain left wing NIMBYs who were determined that this event would never happen no matter what its benefits to the city.  Shocker right?

So here we are...the event cancelled, the organizer saying there are other options...one of which is in the Northeast...What are the chances they can pull off the event on short notice somewhere else?  Do I want to go to Providence for the race?  Will it be a shadow of its original proposal and not worth the money paid up front?  Will the organizer collapse and leave me with useless tickets as they work their way through bankruptcy?

Best option for me at this point is to get my money back and see how it shakes out?  So how to do it? I've already emailed (no response yet), called (no answer) and searched in the articles and websites about the event and its cancellation for info on how to get my money back.  Nothing yet.

So best option?  Call my credit card company and charge the purchase back.  Its one of the nice things about using a credit card to purchase something.  If you don't get what you paid for, Visa and MasterCard hold the company that processes the transaction liable for bringing the end merchant (the entity that failed to deliver the goods) into the card system.  That company (the processor) will try to pass that liability on to the original company but if that company goes away (bankruptcy or the like) the liability rests with the processor which is almost always a multibillion dollar company that is forced to make good on these charges by Visa/MC.  So if you/I don't get our refunds...call your credit card company and charge the tickets back and use the money to go see F1 up in Montreal...

UPDATE:  Received an email this morning that refunds for the tickets will begin on Monday and occur in the order they were purchased.  This is good news as it means either Vendini (the company the organizer used for ticketing and box office management) held the funds back in the case of an occurrence like this, or the processing company did, or the organizer itself did...I would watch your accounts to make sure that the money is returned in short order but at least it appears the buyers will be made whole which is different than similar circumstances.  So what should I do with the $493?

Book Review: Detroit--An American Autopsy

This is the first work of Charlie LeDuff's that I have read but it probably won't be my last.

I picked up this book shortly after its release about a month or so ago as I am interested in the debacle that is the American auto industry and the city of Detroit.  I ended up learning a lot more than I had anticipated and that's one the best things you can say about any book.

I learned why Detroit, while firmly located in the Northern United States, is a most Southern city.  I learned about the horrific series of politicians in charge of Detroit over the past 50 years.  I learned that the 3,500,000 square ft. Packard Automotive plant that is set on 40 acres of land has been shuttered since 1958 remaining substantially abandoned.

I learned that I never want to move to Detroit.

To me the first half of the book is the most interesting as it goes into detail regarding the current state of Detroit and the myriad causes for its destruction.  LeDuff doesn't fail in his sskewering of pretty much everyone, from the automotive executives, to Wall Street bankers, to over indebted citizens, to corrupt black and white politicians, to drug abusers, to damn near every privileged and not so privileged class of people we have in this country.  Even LeDuff himself is not immune to his own pen as he pulls now punches in revealing his own faults.

The amount of information contained here is near staggering in its ability to depress and shock a reader over the status of this city.  Detroit belongs with the favelas of Brazil and the ghettos of Johannesburg, not in modern America and its all our own fault.  LeDuff turns an honest eye to it all and is needed reading for those examining modern urban America.