Rant - the 'human' detector that Ticketmaster, et al, uses

[Kneel B4 Zod]

Just tried to buy tix from Ticketmaster. I was faced with this puzzle. WTF?

The 2nd & 4th characters I could only take 50/50 guesses on. the 7th character looks like the 4th, but may or may not be different. I have no idea what the right answer actually is. I got it wrong, and was then faced with an equally difficult one. I got that wrong. Finally I was able to solve the 3rd.

WTF!!

is this really the best way to tell humans from bots - by presenting a visual test which I can't even get right half the time? PS I have 20/20 vision and a crisp LCD monitor