It was meant to be the ultimate birthday present. But a 260-mile round trip from Neath to the West Midlands to see pop singer Ariana Grande last week left a mum nearly £700 out of pocket and three kids heartbroken.

That's because the concert tickets Andriana James originally booked last December failed to turn up in time for the US star's gig at the Birmingham Arena on Saturday, with the website Viagogo admitting just days to spare that they'd been lost in the post.

However, after allocating the 39-year-old health care support worker last minute replacement seats - much further away from the stage then she'd previously requested - Andriana was unable to pick them up from the designated collection point due to large parts of the city being shut off by roadworks.

"The tickets were meant to be a birthday present from my niece's 15th birthday and early Christmas gifts for my own two daughters - they all love Ariana Grande," she said.

Andriana with daughters Charlotte and Rhianna

"For the four of us it cost £695, with a further £200 on top to stay at a hotel for the night."

But, having ordered the tickets nearly 10 months before, Andriana started becoming concerned about a fortnight ago when her delivery still hadn't arrived. 

"Viagogo told me to expect them about a week before the show, but there was still nothing. After that they admitted their courier had lost them.

"They said they'd investigate and sort me out replacements which would need to be picked up on the day, but these seats turned out to be much further back in the arena - nowhere near as good a view.

"To make matters worse, after initially saying I'd get a refund if I wasn't happy, they started being really difficult about it.
"So, in the end, we decided to go to the show rather than lose out altogether."

But, after already getting snared up in motorway diversions en-route, they then found themselves driving endlessly in circles around Birmingham due to roadworks.     

The Welsh Ariana Grande fans found their way blocked by roadworks like these

"We had couple of hours to pick the tickets up from an address we'd been given, but everywhere we went there were these massive metal cordons blocking our way

"I couldn't even work out how to get to it by foot, but when I rang Viagogo to ask if someone could come out and meet us with the tickets I was told 'no'.

"They were really rude about it , saying that they'd upheld their part of the bargain and that was all there was to it."

As a result, all Andriana and the children could do was watch the thousands of other Ariana Grande fans filed into the venue to watch her sold-out performance before heading back home.       

"We were gutted, but the hotel manger was great about it all. He said he'd reimburse the cost for the room if we reported it as fraud to the police and got back to him with an incident number," says Andriana.

"But it's not even about the money anymore really. I just want to prevent others from experiencing the same nightmare we did."      

A spokesperson for Viagogo said the firm would like to apologise to Andriana and added that it would be reviewing the level of service she received in order to improve upon it in the future. 

The company also said she would be receiving a full refund.