There was recently a case at another theatre of an employee issuing fraudulent ticket returns and refunds, and we are looking into ways to both: detect if something like this occurs and how to prevent it from happening in the first place. From what we understand, someone was able to refund ticket purchases to a different credit card than was used to purchase the tickets. The refunded card does not have to belong to the constituent - this person used that to refund to their own credit card.
Our first thought was that perhaps there is a way to only allow refunds to the credit cards that purchased the order. There are situations where we would need to change that though, such as with a cancelled card.
The other problem is how to track things like this if they happen. Currently we keep an eye on returned amounts when posting batches, but there is probably a better way of doing that. I’m thinking of writing a report that gives all refunds issued over a period, and which Tessitura user issued them. We might be able to detect concerning patterns that way. My worry is that if someone were to do this in small amounts over a long period of time we might not notice for a while. We also just did a little test and it seems that the mechanics of refunding to another credit card are pretty simple - anyone who has a little experience with Tessitura could probably do it.
Has anyone else heard of something like this happening? Any solutions that people have come up with or would suggest?
Hi Andrew,
I've been thinking about this issue recently as well. I don't have a perfect solution to stop it from happening, but we do have some policies in place that mean we'd catch anything like this quickly.
Specifically for ticket sales, we have very strict batch procedures. One batch per person per day. If there are multiple batches or a batch that's closed at an odd hour, a manager will notice and take a closer look at those transactions. The box office manager posts batches each business day and hands them off to finance. This way there are 2 people looking at all the paperwork and are more likely to catch anything out of place. The finance office reconciles the bank account to their financial software each day so if something happens in the bank account that is not on the daily box office report, they will notice and investigate.
In terms of reporting, we look at daily sales based on transaction date without performance date filters. This way, we see any transactions on past performances, which could be an indicator of something awry. Since we almost never refund any fees, if the finance office sees refunds to that GL on any posting report they will ask questions.
I created a custom version of the Performance Transaction Detail report that would just highlight any refunds for the Box Office managers, along with who completed them and any order notes so they could monitor any refunds happening easily.
Thank you all for your ideas. It sounds like this will have to be solved through internal processes where we have to have a designated way of checking any refunds. Caryl, would you mind sharing your custom report so we can adapt it to our purposes? And I'm guessing there is no way to make Tessitura force refunds to credit card on the original transaction?