NBC CT Responds helps New London Maritime Society recover almost $20K

Something was not adding up for a New London nonprofit when its bank account was short almost $20,000.

New London Maritime Society fought for months to get its hands on its hard-earned cash with no luck.

That is until NBC CT Responds came to the rescue.

“It takes a lot of tours and a lot of volunteers and a lot of organization to raise $19,750 and that’s what we didn’t get last year,” Executive Director Susan Tamulevich said.

Tamulevich is the New London Maritime Society’s only paid employee. The nonprofit relies on donations and money raised from visitors to its Custom House Museum, tours of the three lighthouses it caretakes, and other events the society hosts.

One of those lighthouses is New London’s iconic Harbor Light, which welcomes guests from all over the world.

After a busy 2022 summer season, Tamulevich discovered something was wrong when she realized the nonprofit was missing a boatload of cash: exactly $19,750.

“Finally, after COVID, we’ve had this great summer and then what happens, we’re owed so much money,” she said.

The nonprofit uses Brown Paper Tickets as its third-party ticket seller, meaning Brown Paper Tickets issues the digital tickets to guests, and then, according to its website, the online company will send the face value of the ticket sales within 10 business days to the nonprofit.

“You have to do a lot of $5 tours to get to $19,750. It was so many tours,” said Tamulevich, who says after years of no issues working with Brown Paper Tickets, she spent almost a year trying to get answers to this big problem.

She forwarded NBC CT Responds copies of emails she sent and other correspondences, too.

“They didn’t answer their emails and they didn’t answer their phones which was always one of the nicest things about them. You could always get a person on the phone,” Tamulevich said.

So, Tamulevich reached out to NBC CT Responds for an assist, and we were already quite familiar with the company.

Since 2023, NBC Responds teams across the country have heard complaints about Brown Paper Tickets, mostly from other nonprofits or small businesses who used the company to process tickets for their events, too.

An NBC Responds team helped a Chicago nonprofit get back money collected for its craft beer festival fundraiser.

Our team in Boston lent a hand to a band looking to get paid for a concert they played.

We’ve resolved complaints for viewers in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York in recent years too. And now, here in Connecticut.

Once NBC CT Responds reached out to Brown Paper Tickets, New London Maritime Society had its hard-earned cash back in hand in days’ time.

“And I can’t thank you enough for helping us, or actually doing it, getting that money for us because it’s made such a difference. We’ve done a number of things around the museum that we’ve just had to hold off on for the past 12 months,” Tamulevich said.

We reached out to Brown Paper Tickets and received a response from Events.com, which is the company in the process of acquiring Brown Paper Tickets.

Events.com writes in part, “Since the initial phase of the acquisition, Events.com has assisted Brown Paper Tickets with successfully disbursing over $75 million to event organizers worldwide."

And while a new payment system has been implemented for future events, Events.com said teams are working on paying the remaining event organizers such as the New London Maritime Society.

The company first told NBC Responds these would be completed by the end of March, then the end of May, and now we're told by the end of June.

As the busy tour season starts up again, New London Maritime Society said thanks to NBC CT Responds, things are looking up again this year.

“I think that people should realize that they can get help and not be afraid to ask for it.”