StuRomseySaint

djharvey got m3rked :cool:

What information do you have at hand about the demographic of the people on the payment plan? Or are you just talking out of your @rse? I will keep repeating this till it is blue in the face because some of you are showing yourselves up to having a complete narrow mind, either that or being stupid. - The club does not carry any credit risk. - There is not credit. - The club does not pay a penny. - The Saints fan pays upfront. - There is no credit. - It is not a credit agreement. - The club do not pay a penny. - It is not a loan.

There is MASSIVE COST to the club. For each defaulter there is. There is - Cost of 5 minutes Ticket Office Staff time ( pro-rata 13k salary ) = 56p During this time the ticket office staff will press a button on the computer to block the defaulter from buying tickets. Cost of one sheet of A4 - 2p ( I priced up on the good quality stuff ) One envelope - 2p One run of ink on printer - 3p One 2nd class stamp -32p One follow up telephone call - 5p There you go... administration costs = £1 WOW - I can see why Cortese has decided the costs are far too much for him. A whole £1 to deal with a defaulter. And if the defaulter does not pay, please add another £1 on for a member of staff to add them to the defaulters posters to be displayed in the turnstiles.

What a complete t0sser and internet warrior you are. It is people like you that sit and snipe from the safety of your PC which show just how retarded our support is. How can you judge peoples from behind your PC? There is a million and one reasons people who might rely on a payment plan for a number of reasons. You are another one of these clueless gimps that don't understand the definition 'Credit Crunch' and seem to think that you can pop down your local shop and pick up as many credit cards and loans as you want. I had the funds to pay up front ( I wasn't going to as a matter of principle... for those of you who have acted all high and mighty about being super financial heads, how's about this.... Last seasons interest free installment plan is actually the most economic way of paying for your season ticket.

And your response is just laughable because you can't actually even find a reason why you disagree. If you are going to disagree then hows about balancing the debate? We would NOT have got liquidated during the season.

So by reading that, you would have been quite happy if they scrapped season tickets alltogether? As long as they invested in the team?

f*cking hell there is no administration costs to the club, regardless of defaulters the adminstration costs are picked up by the customer ( the fan ) how many times?!?!? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh

I don't think League 2... but who knows. Anyway, fair play to them and thanks ( I guess ) but seriously, the love-in that happens regarding them is more cringe-worthy than our relationship with Southend fans. I think people need to realise that they didn't buy the club for us, they bought it because it presented an excellent return on investment and they saw an opportunity to make a mint off us. If people understand that, then maybe we can as fans, make sure that they make their money from Sky and transfers in the Premiership, and not rip us fans off along the way.

14 or 15 games, correct, but you have to remember that the people shafted are season ticket holders, people who if given the chance, would come to every single game... so will almost certainly go to more than 14 a season if we are top of the league, which is what Cortese is banking on.

People may lapse, yes, they may do, it's obviously not an issue though otherwise every single other well supported club would not run the scheme! And come on... it's really not hard to police it, as I have said on other thread... all it takes is the turnstile operators taking a bit more time to check the tickets they should be checking them anyway. You know what, here is a simple way of doing it... reward a turnstile operator for catching 'defaulters' trying to enter the stadium. There you go... to catch the couple of people that ripped off the club, it's not hard. The reasoning is not defaulters, there is absolutely no substance in it, nobody has any direct quotes from the club, not have they any figures to back up their argument... people have just switched to that one as the reason because I have proven BEYOND DOUBT that administration and costs has absolutely nothing to do with the reason they stopped the installment plans.

Seriously, the number of people would have been insignificant. Also, the scheme last season was run in-house... Zebra have the skills and experience to recover arrears. There has been no mention by Cortese or Luker or anyone else about people cheating the club, you are speculating. Whereas it is absolutely completely 100% obvious what sort of business model Cortese is building for anyone with half a brain and not a blind loyalty towards Liebherr and Cortese. He is trying to cash in on the PAYG customer banking on us being top of the league, the installment plan will be back next season if we are in the Championship, because the model will change again to wanting to get as many in the ground in advance as we can't guarantee the success that guarantees the crowds. It really is not hard to police defaulters entering the stadium... not one little bit hard, and once you prosecute the first one, nobody else will do it... but anyway, you have absolutely no substance that there was even any people defaulting, you are just guessing with nothing to back up your theory.

I beg to differ. The club would have rolled out the season tickets and prepared for a League 1 season in administration. We had survived through the summer and the start of the season was nearing, we could have run self sufficiant for the next 9 months. Gavynn Davies had also told the club to contact him if it ever got to the stage where the clubs plug was about to be pulled. Yes we were close to going out of business and let's be fair, in that respect, Leon Crouch saved us. I don't subscribe to the theory that they saved us... don't get me wrong,I am happy Liebherr bought us and they have some great plans etc ( apart from ripping fans off in the process ) , but I don't think they saved us... Crouch did.

Oh lordy. Do you think Cortese was doing US a favour by saving poor old Southampton? Or do you think he saw an opportunity to make a mint for his client, Mr Liebherr?

The problem is on a forum you never get a true grasp of the feeling. This thread attracts the "I'm alright Jack" people and the ones that want to come on here and show off because they have got their season ticket. I don't for one minute think their opinions are all the same in the real world. The conversation in the pubs and workplace over the last few days has been about the lack of payment plan and how people are going to pay for it, with most people I come across stating they now cannot afford a season ticket. Not one person who already has a season ticket or can afford to pay up front has given it Billy Big B*llocks and all have been sympathetic. I know it's only my experience of speaking to people... but it's a hell of alot different reaction than on this forum.

Yes, the booking fee applies to away tickets as well.

That is the whole point and people do not seem to care. Hopefully this thread can be held somewhere so we can bring it back up next season when season tickets go up again if we get promoted and new charges are added. Wouldn't surprise me next season if there is an 'administration fee' or the like to renew season tickets. And when we grace the Premiership again the cheapest ticket in the house being upwards of £45. People need to look at the bigger picture, unless you make a stand now, the club will take the p!ss out of the fans all the way to the Premier League. Forget about the payment plan for a minute, even the people that are lucky enough to have paid up front should be worried about the 'business plan' of SFC... because you are all going to be paying for it.

Faz, look at all that speculation on there. Can you not at least respect that I have taken the time to secret shop the company and outlined the costs... got hold of all the information to hand and proven BEYOND DOUBT that there is ZERO cost in setting up an Installment plan... not a little bit... ZERO There is also ZERO cost in defaulters apart from the cost of a stamp, a bit of paper and some ink. Yes they might have a couple ( and it really would only be a couple ) of people who cancel their DD and still go to the games, hardly a massive issue though based on the revenue bought in. I don't know why I bother sometimes... you speculate on something, people tell you to go and prove it... you come back with 100% FACTS and people still ignore it just because they like to say something different.

Oh look, there's another one that doesn't seem to get it that many people cannot just go out and get a credit card. They have isolated a large chunk of our support. I would say that is a pretty major drama and if you didn't have a credit card, wouldn't you class it as one too?

Reeeey, check it out, another billy big balls flexing his financial muscle on this thread. Can none of you understand that a large section of our support have been shafted by the club and prevented from getting a season ticket by the club by forceful and bullying tactics, deliberately delaying the announcement of the season tickets and notice of the payment plan being removed in order to force a number of our support to have to pay on a game by game basis? There is no other reason that they don't offer the payment plan other than taking the punt the people they have forced out of paying in installments will pay the premium price on a game by game basis and earn them a bit more cash. Would be nice if the people who are lucky enough to have the money to pay upfront could at least support the people who rely on the payment plan and have been mugged off by SFC to help force SFC in to reinstating the payment plan. But no, why would that happen? Just about sums up our retarded support. I seriously can't believe that people can sit back and applaud the club adding charges and removing benefits... why? Seriously... on a final point before I hit the hay... You reap what you sow. If you allow all these extra charges to be applied now and the benefits of payment plans etc to be removed with no reason then you will get the club you want... Come the Premiership in a few years you will be paying season ticket prices which make P*mpeys look insignificant, £600 or £700, and of course no payment plan, meaning the vast majority of Saints fans will be having to find £50 every other Saturday to watch Saints. Will you be applauding Cortese then? Like I said.... You reap what you sow.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeey Someone gets it! At last! :-)

I had a lovely evening too... skipped the walk and went to a nice pub in Nomansland instead, The Lamb, lovely pub. Would it surprise you if I said we discussed the pro's and cons of Cortese and the needless lack of a payment plan for alot of the night?

Seriously Kip, congratulations on being able to afford your season ticket upfront... Would you like a Blue Peter Badge? Seriously, stop being such a chump, there are hundreds of Saints fans who have been shafted by the club by removing the payment plan, and the reasoning the club have given is b*llocks, as I have clearly proven. If the club can give an honest reason as to why they have been removed then maybe people will accept it. Every single well supported club has a payment plan... why not us? Are we wrong not to ask for one?

The club do not cough up a penny with regards to defaulters, the agreement is between Zebra finance and the customer ( Saints fan ), when a fan defaults, Zebra/Premium attempt to collect the payment and chase it up, if they are unsuccesful the account is passed back to the club who send a letter/make a call stating the remaining sum needs to be paid in full or they have to ( by law ) surrender their season ticket. I would bet my last dollar that the amount of people who default is minimal, seriously, why would Saints fans default on the payments and then blag their way in to Saints matches? It's not hard to police the few that do. There is no financial risk to SFC, none whatsoever... there is only the risk that a very small number of people might default and still try to use their season ticket... and the numbers are going to be insignificant compared to how many 'duplicates' are floating about by people phoning up and saying they have lost their season ticket.

Zebra collect the money, for example, say the season ticket is £360 over 6 months is £60 a month to the club, the repayment fee might be £65 a month. £60 a month to the club, £5 a month to Zebra finance for example. It is not different to paying your Insurance premiums on a monthly basis, any reasonable person would expect to pay interest or an administration fee. If people don't want to pay interest then the option is there to pay up front or not at all. However 99% of people will understand that to pay in installments, there is an extra cost. Zebra offer bespoke packages and each clubs installment plans are different, I have just highlighted some of the schemes which involve no cost to SFC. I and many people would be more than happy to cover the cost to Zebra finance if it meant we could have a payment plan. I would be surprised if anyone else relying on the payment plan could honestly say any different.

Why do you take such an interest in payment plan debates when it has absolutely fook all to do with you as it doesn't affect you as you don't go to games?