Washington Nationals will not refund service charge on NLCS pre-orders

Washington Nationals fans who pre-ordered tickets to the National League Championship Series will not be refunded the $6 service charge that was tacked onto each order, according to a report on WTOP.com.

Fans who purchased tickets online will receive full refunds on the face value of the ticket as well as the per-ticket convenience charge that is added by the distributor. However, the $6 processing fee, which a spokesperson explained is used for printing and mailing the tickets, is not refundable.

The Nationals' online tickets are handled by Ticketmaster.com and the team's official website specifies that fees outside of the ticket price and convenience charge are non-refundable. Given a rough estimation of the potential of four home games in the NLCS for the Nationals, the team gained a profit of roughly $500,000 by retaining the $6 charge for games that never happened and tickets that were never printed or mailed.

According to a report by the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Orioles also utilized this practice for pre-sales to the American League Championship Series.