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The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

191 points by matttah 11y ago

paulgb 11y ago
tl;dr it was the seller who screwed him over, not StubHub, but StubHub responded poorly and has policies that incentivize this behaviour when ticket prices go up by more than 20%.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  Why be a market facilitator if you aren't going to make sure that buyers and sellers are being honest and fair with each other? That is what irritates me about this.
  - dickbasedregex 11y ago
    Because money. HN will likely play devils advocate but I agree with you. If you enter an arena, I believe you are partly responsible for what happens in that arena.
    - theseatoms 11y ago
      Morally, yes, they should be responsible. But StubHub only has an obligation to act legally, not morally. There should be laws in place to deal with this situation. Maybe there already are?
      - LanceH 11y ago
        Why laws? How about just contracts binding those in the market?
        theseatoms 11y ago
        You're right. That's probably the proper legal solution.
        jerf 11y ago
        Agreed; this is probably already fraud between the seller and the buyer, ignoring StubHub's involvement already. It's unlikely we need any laws to "fix" this because the ones that have been around for centuries are probably already sufficient. Small-claims court may already be an available avenue of relief as in many states this would fit under the limit, though the internet can as always make jurisdiction a tricky issue: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-how-much-30031.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-ho...
        mikeash 11y ago
        Would a small claims court in this case do anything besides ensure the buyer got a refund, which they already got anyway?
        jerf 11y ago
        I would claim I had legal possession of the tickets due to the fact the seller had accepted my money, and that when the value appreciated, that was therefore my value, not theirs, and that ~$5000 was stolen from me. I won't guarantee victory because of course I can't, but this strikes me as a fairly basic argument about possession suitable for a small-claims court, not a bizarre legal theory. By contrast, had I merely "reserved" the tickets but no money transfer had occurred, in a transaction clearly labeled as a "reservation subject to cancellation", I'd expect the court to tell me to go pound sand and that I was lucky to get coupons in that value. But buying a ticket on StubHub looks and feels like a purchase, not a reservation subject to arbitrary cancellation. StubHub's terminology is all about "Buy" and "Sell" on their website, not "Reserve". (Just checked to be sure.)
        URSpider94 11y ago
        Likely they would, if the buyer sued the seller. The buyer has an invoice stating that the goods were sold to him, and the seller had received payment into their bank account. It's pretty clear that title of the tickets had transferred to the buyer, and that he would be entitled to the proceeds of any illicit sale of those tickets to another buyer. That said, IANAL.
      - Frondo 11y ago
        I would like to offer the controversial response that we all have a responsibility to act morally, all the time. "It was legal" should never be an excuse.
        theseatoms 11y ago
        The act of breaking each responsibility differs with regard to consequence. "It was legal" is a perfect legal excuse. But I agree that as consumers we should each voluntarily avoid doing business with immoral business entities. Better yet, we should denounce immoral actors and call public attention to their transgressions. I realize that this is an idyllic notion, and that it is hard to organize boycotts in practice. But it does happen. Corporations react to public outrage more so than ever these days.
ascagnel_ 11y ago
The better question is why SH allows sellers to cancel complete orders where payment has already been taken. Frankly, it's ridiculous that the seller had any input a month after the order was marked as confirmed, and I can only assume that payment was taken if SH was willing to issue a nearly $1,000 credit.
- hotgoldminer 11y ago
  SH has no mechanism to ensure delivery of the ticket. The seller holds the ticket, so how can SH compel them to hand it over - short of not releasing the buyer's payment to the seller. Short being the operative word. SH is running a speculative marketplace against n% insurance fee on unfulfilled sales.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Why are they set up this way? The purchase should confer ownership at the time of purchase, or within a reasonable time afterwards, in such a way that it is physically impossible for the seller to take back ownership without the cooperation of the buyer.
    - morley 11y ago
      Sometimes Ticketmaster takes a long while to print the tickets. So even if the seller has to send in the tickets as soon as possible (which is in fact the case), there's going to be some period where the transaction has occurred and the seller can't possibly send the tickets to the buyer. I think Stubhub has non-delivery penalties, but probably not enough to cancel out this windfall.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Sure, "some period" is fine. When you buy stuff on eBay, for example, your product might not even ship for a couple of days. In this case, though, it was a month later and they still hadn't been delivered. That's no longer reasonable. It's possible the ticket issuers won't issue tickets even in that timeframe. StubHub's web site has warnings that the tickets might not be available until 72 hours before the event. In which case they either need to forbid reselling such tickets, or have massive penalties for breaking the contract.
whack 11y ago
To be fair, the very first section of the StubHub user agreement warns about this scenario: "1. Using StubHub Ticket Marketplace. StubHub is a marketplace that allows users to buy ("Buyers") and sell ("Sellers") tickets, related passes and merchandise or other goods (collectively, the "tickets") for events. As a marketplace, StubHub does not own the tickets on the Site nor does it set prices for tickets. Because sellers set ticket prices, they may be higher than face value. While StubHub may provide pricing, shipping, listing and other guidance in our Services, such guidance is solely informational and you may decide to follow it or not. Also, while we may help facilitate the resolution of disputes and provide the FanProtect Guarantee, StubHub has no control over and does not guarantee the existence, quality, safety or legality of the items advertised; the truth or accuracy of the user's content or listings; the ability of Sellers to sell tickets or Buyers to pay for them; or that a Buyer or Seller will complete a transaction." The takeaway from this seems to be that: 1. StubHub should be more transparent about the seller-side risks involved when "selling tickets" to customers. 2. Buyers should be more aware of the fact that Stubhub is only a marketplace, and they are really at the mercy of the seller. 3. Given StubHub's policy above, anyone who wants a guaranteed ticket should never ever use StubHub.
- mikeash 11y ago
  That's just ridiculous. Nobody reads user agreements, everybody knows nobody reads user agreements, and pretty much everybody expects that if you purchase something through a company, that company is responsible for delivering. You can't reasonably set up a marketplace, be the middleman for buying and selling, then throw up your hands and say "sucks to be you" when the product you advertise doesn't get delivered to buyers. This might be legal, but it is completely nuts, and the existence of a "we're completely nuts" clause in the user agreement doesn't mitigate that.
  - whack 11y ago
    Hence my 1st takeaway: "StubHub should be more transparent about the seller-side risks involved when "selling tickets" to customers"
busterarm 11y ago
Simple way to solve this is to make SH an escrow service that requires the tickets up front. Of course that would increase costs and their responsibility, so it will never happen.
- downandout 11y ago
  They actually do this for some very high profile events - they require you to send in your tickets before they are placed for sale on the site. The Super Bowl is one, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was another. But regardless of whether or not it is a high profile event, the seller should only be given a few days to deliver the tickets after the sale. That way this kind of thing won't happen. If this seller only had 5 days to deliver the tickets, for example, this buyer would have had his tickets long before the announcement.
  - asift 11y ago
    More severe penalties for reneging would seem to make sense too. This could potentially be problematic in cases of scalping (e.g., the seller scalps a ticket right before someone else makes a purchase on SH), but this is simply another case where digital transfer of ownership would make way more sense. If SH could see a ticket had changed hands, they could immediately pull it from their site.
  - busterarm 11y ago
    I feel like this is something Amazon could do very well...
- asift 11y ago
  Or SH can work with other stakeholders in the industry to develop alternative systems of digital transfer and record keeping of ticket ownership. Paper tickets have some benefits, but there should be a way to void a paper ticket and convert it to a digital ticket that can be transferred electronically. Escrow costs would be a lot lower of SH is only escrowing digital ownership that can be transferred back to the seller if the tickets haven't sold.
delecti 11y ago
The article might be more compelling if half of it weren't in all caps. Though as is, I probably won't ever use StubHub if this is the case.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  The problem I see is: show me a good alternative I don't see that there is any ticket-service that isn't shady in some way. I've only used a few, but they are usually pretty exclusive to the event, and they are all terrible.
bruceb 11y ago
This reminds me of the Hawks v. Pats SuperBowl fiasco last year. Flippers selling tix they didn't have, people buying their flights and then not getting tixs: http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/super-bowl-dream-becomes-nightmare-for-seahawks-fans-after-shortage-of-tickets/ http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/super-bowl-dream... Though in that case StubHub guaranteed the tixs: "Instead, StubHub as of Saturday had spent $5 million on tickets to avoid defaulting on orders. StubHub policy guarantees that fans will get a ticket to the game if a seller can’t provide a ticket."
- rsync 11y ago
  I have experienced this myself with Lakers playoff tickets a few years ago ... we showed up at the game with the tickets we were sent, and they were tickets to the previous playoff series, a week or so prior. We ran a few blocks from Staples to the stubhub office and they just handed us comparable tickets. It was amazing. One of the nicest and best customer service interactions I have ever had.
awakeasleep 11y ago
Does anyone know how this compares with Bait & Switch laws? It seems like the merchant's behavior fit the definition perfectly (but im not a lawyer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch
- pc86 11y ago
  No, B&S (of which only the seller would be guilty not the marketplace) would be advertising tickets for $900 now but saying "oh they don't exist anymore but here are some for $6,000.
th0br0 11y ago
Looks like "ticketsforless.com" got some great free PR (if they manage to spin the media on this) - from the FB comments: Jason Durbin · VP of Ticket Operations at Tickets For Less Jesse Sandler – I’m the VP of Ticket Operations at Tickets For Less. We’ve reached out to TheLeadSports.com and are trying to contact you. We have four seats for you in section 106 for Kobe’s last home game. Please contact me or our President Dan Rouen at 913-685-3322.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Not exactly free if the tickets are going for $6,000 each, but still a genius move.
  - talmand 11y ago
    If I remember right, take into account its from the comments, the president of the company purchased the tickets. I doubt at 6k a ticket though.
- QuotedForTruth 11y ago
  Stubhub also said they'll get him to the game. No mention of changing policy so that it doesn't happen again. Next time it wont go viral and they wont have to fix it. https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024 https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024?
  - th0br0 11y ago
    Well, they're only writing about Jesse and not his 3 friends though. ... bad reaction IMHO, given that he bought 4 tickets initially and not 4.
- GnomeChomsky 11y ago
  For what it's worth, I'm at least one person who bought tickets on Tickets for Less instead of StubHub because of this. This kind of goodwill PR works.
ssharp 11y ago
I'm a season ticket holder for an NBA team that runs its own secondary market for tickets. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I can't use services like StubHub to list my tickets for sale because the tickets are locked down into the secondary market account. On the other hand, I've never seen crap like this happen on there. I was lucky/smart enough to list all the games I couldn't attend at multiples of face value and adjust the price as the game dates come closer. This worked out well with my tickets to the game against the Lakers because they sold pretty quickly after Kobe's announcement. I definitely didn't get full market value for them, but people were getting their tickets poached at far less because they set them for a pre-retirement announcement value. Since the Lakers stink and it was a weekday game, that value was probably below face value. But with the market we're forced to use, you can't take your tickets back, which is clearly a good thing.
joshuaheard 11y ago
That's clearly a breach of contract. The buyer could sue the seller for damages.
- eli 11y ago
  The buyer already got their money back, so what is the damage? Sure if the buyer booked a nonrefundable plane ticket in anticipation of going to the game, that would be something. Absent something like that, I'm not sure there's a case.
  - FireBeyond 11y ago
    The damage is that "getting money back after the transaction wasn't finalized" wasn't a consensual part of the contract. You buy a car from me. A -month- later I show up and say, "Yeah, sorry, I sold this car by accident, here's your money." and I take off with the car regardless of what you want to do, you have a case against me for theft. Whether the buyer got his money back is irrelevant - that doesn't give the seller the retroactive ability to void the sale.
dbot 11y ago
I have to admit that I always assumed Stubhub took some kind of ownership interest in the tickets either (1) once posted; or (2) once sold through Stubhub. Situations like this make it clear why it's in their interest not to do so.
- macleanjr 11y ago
  For sports teams/venues that partner with them, they do. When I sell my hockey tickets on stubhub, they place my tickets on hold with Tickets.com, and once sold, my physical tickets can no longer be used to gain entry to the event. The tickets that the buyer receives has a new barcode on them, so they can rest assured they won't have an issue at the gate.
strommen 11y ago
Update: StubHub, via their Twitter account, has promised to get this guy to the Kobe game. https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024 https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024
- herbig 11y ago
  Not good enough. They should also announce how they're going to fix this situation in the future.
- golergka 11y ago
  Did the promise not to cancel orders that they received the payment for in the future?
  - strommen 11y ago
    How could they possibly make that promise? They don't own the tickets, and they're not really selling them. They're facilitating a transaction between two parties.
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      They could stop making it profitable to cancel to the point of assisting in the cancel, at the very least. They could threaten to sue by themselves when the seller breaches contract on a major purchase. They could improve their guarantee.
    - michaelt 11y ago
      Well, in this case the order was "confirmed" then later StubHub claimed the tickets were "listed in error" which is an obvious lie. So for a start, they could start not obviously lying to their customers. They could also add automatic sanity checking on listings, so sellers cannot accidentally list tickets at too low a price; and a manual offer acceptance stage in case the seller has chosen to list on multiple marketplaces. They could also require that when a seller is selling a ticket, that the seller proves they actually have the ticket. If stubhub want to facilitate sellers engaging in speculation by selling tickets they don't own, they could clearly mark such listings, with the seller placing a security deposit so their obligations can be met even if the market moves substantially against them. In the event a seller works around these protections (such as by submitting fake proof they have the ticket, or refusing to meet their obligations if the market price of a ticket they shorted exceeds their deposit) stubhub could take care of forcing the seller to meet their obligations.
donretag 11y ago
The seller probably never had tickets in the first place, which is why they had to cancel the order, since they would have taken a huge loss trying to flip tickets. It happens all the time with big events: tickets will appear on StubHub before they even go on sale to the general public. Speculators will gauge interests using StubHub for tickets they do not even own. If they make a StubHub purchase, they have time to find a cheaper ticker to cover the transaction.
- QuotedForTruth 11y ago
  How can they do this for events that have specific seats. Its not a general admission event. They sold this guy certain seats.
  - donretag 11y ago
    Great point, my mistake. Ultimately, StubHub policies that condone speculative selling (not releasing tickets at purchase time), allowed the seller to renege on the agreement.
gepgaewpk 11y ago
The real winner here is Tickets For Less.
forrestthewoods 11y ago
If the seller changed their mind and pulled their tickets then StubHub should own up and say so. The tickets weren't listed "incorrectly". They were sold correctly but then the seller refused to forward the tickets when the price changed. StubHub and similar services should also guarantee ticket possession within 7 days. If you buy the tickets you get the tickets immediately. It's bullshit that you buy the tickets but don't receive them for weeks or months. That's too big of a window to let sellers change their mind. I bought tickets through SeatGeek via BigTicket for on November, 19th for a January 7th show (tonight!). I wasn't told at time of purchase that my tickets would not be delivered until after January 1st. In fact I wasn't told until I e-mailed customer support and asked where the hell my e-mail delivery tickets were. I expect e-mail delivery to be instantaneous. Not 7 weeks later and 6 days before showtime. What if the Lakers ticket seller had until the final week to deliver tickets? If they're expensive today they'll be even more expensive then! This is inexcusable and StubHub is fully responsible for the situation. They do not get to shift blame to the seller.
- mbcrower 11y ago
  StubHub could easily look at the historic pricing data and the normal cancellation rates for tickets. If the cancellation rate is normally low, except for instances where the ticket price suddenly jumped, then any cancellations in that time frame would likely have a high probability of being fraudulent, especially if the same tickets were later relisted through the same sellers account.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  "What if the Lakers ticket seller had until the final week to deliver tickets? If they're expensive today they'll be even more expensive then!" If it was a season-ticket holder (genuine or 'bought for bulk discount at resale'), they'll only get them from the Lakers 4 days prior to the game anyway.
kentt 11y ago
The is normal for stubhub. Here's an article from last where the same thing happened to a friend of mine: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/super-bowl-tickets-stubhub-ebay-sellers-leave-diehard-b-c-seahawks-fan-ticketless-1.2938040 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/super-bowl-ti... tldr, bought tickets for Superbowl, prices went up, order was cancelled, was refunded and given credit which would not cover the cost of the increased cost of tickets. Then repeated the same thing with another reseller.
the_watcher 11y ago
Enjoyed the guy in the comments from Tickets for Less offering him four complimentary, better seats to the game.
kin 11y ago
He's getting 4 free ticket from Budweiser in section 112 and 4 free tickets in section 106 personally delivered by the CEO of Tickets For Less. Now, Stubhub has apologized and promised to get him to the game. If I were him I'd deny the Stubhub tickets regardless of how good they are. Budweiser tickets are middle bottom level section (great view) while Tickets for Less are offering behind the backboard seats. Both are better than the original location he purchased.
- alexc05 11y ago
  I've found this one in the comments: > Jason Durbin · VP of Ticket Operations at Tickets For Less > Jesse Sandler – I’m the VP of Ticket Operations at > Tickets For Less. We’ve reached out to > TheLeadSports.com and are trying to contact you. > We have four seats for you in section 106 for Kobe’s > last home game. Please contact me or our President Dan > Rouen at 913-685-3322. > Like · Reply · 1228 · 23 hrs But where is the Budweiser comment?
  - kin 11y ago
    https://twitter.com/Budweiser/status/684878816959856640 https://twitter.com/Budweiser/status/684878816959856640
pklausler 11y ago
It would be interesting to find out who's sitting in these seats at game time and how they got their tickets.
brk 11y ago
Really this just shows how corrupt and broken the entire entertainment ticketing stack is. TicketMaster, StubHub, etc., all prey on fans, and the fans ALLOW it by paying ridiculous fucking prices to attend events. We're long past the days of needing an entity like Ticketmaster to be in the middle of ticket transactions. And we're long past the days of needing to worry about ticket scalping if we actually have an efficient ticketing system.
- smt88 11y ago
  > fans ALLOW it by paying ridiculous fucking prices to attend events No, fans have no choice. Entertainers allow it by using Ticketmaster. > We're long past the days of needing an entity like Ticketmaster to be in the middle of ticket transactions The greatest fear an event planner has is that they'll plan the event and no one will show up. Ticketmaster aggressively markets the events they're selling tickets for, which is why event planners continue to use them. Sure, you could use a homegrown solution or a smaller company, but Ticketmaster unethically adds all purchasers to a bunch of mailing lists and makes it really difficult to unsubscribe, and then they can claim "X million mailing list subscribers" to the event marketers.
  - talmand 11y ago
    So, to avoid having to do marketing themselves, or to hire a firm, the event planner goes with a possibly corrupt system that by all appearances the fans of the event despise? I'm more of the mind that these things are so entrenched that neither fans or event planners have a choice.
    - slg 11y ago
      The role Ticketmaster plays in the live event business is much bigger than simple middlemen. They provide the previously mentioned marketing, promotion, and discovery. They provide box office management. They provide customer service. They manage the secondary market. They provide business intelligence. They represent artists. They even own their own venues for a complete vertical monopoly. They are the Amazon Web Services of the live event business. Sure, you will probably have a better experience if you use Backblaze for your storage, but AWS provides so many other services you might need that it makes sense to consolidate your business with them. That is why Ticketmaster is so entrenched. It isn't corruption. There is just a huge barrier to entry when your biggest competitor has such a complete product offering.
ijustwanttovote 11y ago
I bought tickets to the New Year's Game, and I couldn't list it for sale on stubhub the day of. I had to use their Last Minute Services, but the office was closed.
- DrScump 11y ago
  They got rid of LMS for all but the largest metro areas (not even Bay Area events have LMS coverage for Sharks, Warriors, or baseball anymore)... not even for the NBA playoffs.
DannyBee 11y ago
Most of these comments ask how this is legal, when the guy owns the tickets, etc. The "when the guy owns the ticket" part is a question of title. Let's take a gander at yon UCC, which covers these questions in most cases in most of the US. https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-401 https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-401 Blah blah blah blah. I'm too lazy to read all the stubhub fine print again, but last time i did, it said nothing. That means, in circumstances like these, title passes to buyer when physical delivery of goods occurs. That's when the buyer owns the tickets. The rest of the questions are pretty standard breach of contract and damages questions, which others seem to have covered. Here, the buyer would definitely have recourse against the seller (but probably not against stubhub). Of course, stubhub is being stupid in this case too, there are a variety of mechanisms it could use to prevent this from happening (escrow, charging sellers difference in current price vs old price if they reneg on tickets that have gone up more than, say, 100% in price, etc). Sadly, it looks like Stubhub also has a financial incentive to let this happen, since they make 20% of the price.
DrScump 11y ago
People need to realize that buying from Stubhub guarantees you only this: if your order isn't filled (or is filled with bogus tickets) and we can't find you tickets we consider equivalent or better at some point (even during the game, then you'll get a refund). The only thing "guaranteed" is your payment. (You might also get additional credit toward a future purchase.) People need to be aware of this when buying major-event tickets: they are happy to "walk" you (give you no ticket alternatives at all) if it's at all costly to cover a bogus sale. I've seen it a number of times at their pickup sites. So, for example, if this happens at a Super Bowl, you are still out all of your transportation, lodging, and other expenses.

191 points by matttah 11y ago

tl;dr it was the seller who screwed him over, not StubHub, but StubHub responded poorly and has policies that incentivize this behaviour when ticket prices go up by more than 20%.

engi_nerd 11y ago
Why be a market facilitator if you aren't going to make sure that buyers and sellers are being honest and fair with each other? That is what irritates me about this.
- dickbasedregex 11y ago
  Because money. HN will likely play devils advocate but I agree with you. If you enter an arena, I believe you are partly responsible for what happens in that arena.
  - theseatoms 11y ago
    Morally, yes, they should be responsible. But StubHub only has an obligation to act legally, not morally. There should be laws in place to deal with this situation. Maybe there already are?
    - LanceH 11y ago
      Why laws? How about just contracts binding those in the market?
      - theseatoms 11y ago
        You're right. That's probably the proper legal solution.
      - jerf 11y ago
        Agreed; this is probably already fraud between the seller and the buyer, ignoring StubHub's involvement already. It's unlikely we need any laws to "fix" this because the ones that have been around for centuries are probably already sufficient. Small-claims court may already be an available avenue of relief as in many states this would fit under the limit, though the internet can as always make jurisdiction a tricky issue: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-how-much-30031.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-ho...
        mikeash 11y ago
        Would a small claims court in this case do anything besides ensure the buyer got a refund, which they already got anyway?
        jerf 11y ago
        I would claim I had legal possession of the tickets due to the fact the seller had accepted my money, and that when the value appreciated, that was therefore my value, not theirs, and that ~$5000 was stolen from me. I won't guarantee victory because of course I can't, but this strikes me as a fairly basic argument about possession suitable for a small-claims court, not a bizarre legal theory. By contrast, had I merely "reserved" the tickets but no money transfer had occurred, in a transaction clearly labeled as a "reservation subject to cancellation", I'd expect the court to tell me to go pound sand and that I was lucky to get coupons in that value. But buying a ticket on StubHub looks and feels like a purchase, not a reservation subject to arbitrary cancellation. StubHub's terminology is all about "Buy" and "Sell" on their website, not "Reserve". (Just checked to be sure.)
        URSpider94 11y ago
        Likely they would, if the buyer sued the seller. The buyer has an invoice stating that the goods were sold to him, and the seller had received payment into their bank account. It's pretty clear that title of the tickets had transferred to the buyer, and that he would be entitled to the proceeds of any illicit sale of those tickets to another buyer. That said, IANAL.
    - Frondo 11y ago
      I would like to offer the controversial response that we all have a responsibility to act morally, all the time. "It was legal" should never be an excuse.
      - theseatoms 11y ago
        The act of breaking each responsibility differs with regard to consequence. "It was legal" is a perfect legal excuse. But I agree that as consumers we should each voluntarily avoid doing business with immoral business entities. Better yet, we should denounce immoral actors and call public attention to their transgressions. I realize that this is an idyllic notion, and that it is hard to organize boycotts in practice. But it does happen. Corporations react to public outrage more so than ever these days.

ascagnel_ 11y ago

The better question is why SH allows sellers to cancel complete orders where payment has already been taken. Frankly, it's ridiculous that the seller had any input a month after the order was marked as confirmed, and I can only assume that payment was taken if SH was willing to issue a nearly $1,000 credit.

hotgoldminer 11y ago
SH has no mechanism to ensure delivery of the ticket. The seller holds the ticket, so how can SH compel them to hand it over - short of not releasing the buyer's payment to the seller. Short being the operative word. SH is running a speculative marketplace against n% insurance fee on unfulfilled sales.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Why are they set up this way? The purchase should confer ownership at the time of purchase, or within a reasonable time afterwards, in such a way that it is physically impossible for the seller to take back ownership without the cooperation of the buyer.
  - morley 11y ago
    Sometimes Ticketmaster takes a long while to print the tickets. So even if the seller has to send in the tickets as soon as possible (which is in fact the case), there's going to be some period where the transaction has occurred and the seller can't possibly send the tickets to the buyer. I think Stubhub has non-delivery penalties, but probably not enough to cancel out this windfall.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Sure, "some period" is fine. When you buy stuff on eBay, for example, your product might not even ship for a couple of days. In this case, though, it was a month later and they still hadn't been delivered. That's no longer reasonable. It's possible the ticket issuers won't issue tickets even in that timeframe. StubHub's web site has warnings that the tickets might not be available until 72 hours before the event. In which case they either need to forbid reselling such tickets, or have massive penalties for breaking the contract.

whack 11y ago

To be fair, the very first section of the StubHub user agreement warns about this scenario: "1. Using StubHub Ticket Marketplace. StubHub is a marketplace that allows users to buy ("Buyers") and sell ("Sellers") tickets, related passes and merchandise or other goods (collectively, the "tickets") for events. As a marketplace, StubHub does not own the tickets on the Site nor does it set prices for tickets. Because sellers set ticket prices, they may be higher than face value. While StubHub may provide pricing, shipping, listing and other guidance in our Services, such guidance is solely informational and you may decide to follow it or not. Also, while we may help facilitate the resolution of disputes and provide the FanProtect Guarantee, StubHub has no control over and does not guarantee the existence, quality, safety or legality of the items advertised; the truth or accuracy of the user's content or listings; the ability of Sellers to sell tickets or Buyers to pay for them; or that a Buyer or Seller will complete a transaction." The takeaway from this seems to be that: 1. StubHub should be more transparent about the seller-side risks involved when "selling tickets" to customers. 2. Buyers should be more aware of the fact that Stubhub is only a marketplace, and they are really at the mercy of the seller. 3. Given StubHub's policy above, anyone who wants a guaranteed ticket should never ever use StubHub.

mikeash 11y ago
That's just ridiculous. Nobody reads user agreements, everybody knows nobody reads user agreements, and pretty much everybody expects that if you purchase something through a company, that company is responsible for delivering. You can't reasonably set up a marketplace, be the middleman for buying and selling, then throw up your hands and say "sucks to be you" when the product you advertise doesn't get delivered to buyers. This might be legal, but it is completely nuts, and the existence of a "we're completely nuts" clause in the user agreement doesn't mitigate that.
- whack 11y ago
  Hence my 1st takeaway: "StubHub should be more transparent about the seller-side risks involved when "selling tickets" to customers"

busterarm 11y ago

Simple way to solve this is to make SH an escrow service that requires the tickets up front. Of course that would increase costs and their responsibility, so it will never happen.

downandout 11y ago
They actually do this for some very high profile events - they require you to send in your tickets before they are placed for sale on the site. The Super Bowl is one, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was another. But regardless of whether or not it is a high profile event, the seller should only be given a few days to deliver the tickets after the sale. That way this kind of thing won't happen. If this seller only had 5 days to deliver the tickets, for example, this buyer would have had his tickets long before the announcement.
- asift 11y ago
  More severe penalties for reneging would seem to make sense too. This could potentially be problematic in cases of scalping (e.g., the seller scalps a ticket right before someone else makes a purchase on SH), but this is simply another case where digital transfer of ownership would make way more sense. If SH could see a ticket had changed hands, they could immediately pull it from their site.
- busterarm 11y ago
  I feel like this is something Amazon could do very well...
asift 11y ago
Or SH can work with other stakeholders in the industry to develop alternative systems of digital transfer and record keeping of ticket ownership. Paper tickets have some benefits, but there should be a way to void a paper ticket and convert it to a digital ticket that can be transferred electronically. Escrow costs would be a lot lower of SH is only escrowing digital ownership that can be transferred back to the seller if the tickets haven't sold.

delecti 11y ago

The article might be more compelling if half of it weren't in all caps. Though as is, I probably won't ever use StubHub if this is the case.

CaptSpify 11y ago
The problem I see is: show me a good alternative I don't see that there is any ticket-service that isn't shady in some way. I've only used a few, but they are usually pretty exclusive to the event, and they are all terrible.

bruceb 11y ago

This reminds me of the Hawks v. Pats SuperBowl fiasco last year. Flippers selling tix they didn't have, people buying their flights and then not getting tixs: http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/super-bowl-dream-becomes-nightmare-for-seahawks-fans-after-shortage-of-tickets/ http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/super-bowl-dream... Though in that case StubHub guaranteed the tixs: "Instead, StubHub as of Saturday had spent $5 million on tickets to avoid defaulting on orders. StubHub policy guarantees that fans will get a ticket to the game if a seller can’t provide a ticket."

rsync 11y ago
I have experienced this myself with Lakers playoff tickets a few years ago ... we showed up at the game with the tickets we were sent, and they were tickets to the previous playoff series, a week or so prior. We ran a few blocks from Staples to the stubhub office and they just handed us comparable tickets. It was amazing. One of the nicest and best customer service interactions I have ever had.

awakeasleep 11y ago

Does anyone know how this compares with Bait & Switch laws? It seems like the merchant's behavior fit the definition perfectly (but im not a lawyer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch

pc86 11y ago
No, B&S (of which only the seller would be guilty not the marketplace) would be advertising tickets for $900 now but saying "oh they don't exist anymore but here are some for $6,000.

th0br0 11y ago

Looks like "ticketsforless.com" got some great free PR (if they manage to spin the media on this) - from the FB comments: Jason Durbin · VP of Ticket Operations at Tickets For Less Jesse Sandler – I’m the VP of Ticket Operations at Tickets For Less. We’ve reached out to TheLeadSports.com and are trying to contact you. We have four seats for you in section 106 for Kobe’s last home game. Please contact me or our President Dan Rouen at 913-685-3322.

mikeash 11y ago
Not exactly free if the tickets are going for $6,000 each, but still a genius move.
- talmand 11y ago
  If I remember right, take into account its from the comments, the president of the company purchased the tickets. I doubt at 6k a ticket though.
QuotedForTruth 11y ago
Stubhub also said they'll get him to the game. No mention of changing policy so that it doesn't happen again. Next time it wont go viral and they wont have to fix it. https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024 https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024?
- th0br0 11y ago
  Well, they're only writing about Jesse and not his 3 friends though. ... bad reaction IMHO, given that he bought 4 tickets initially and not 4.
GnomeChomsky 11y ago
For what it's worth, I'm at least one person who bought tickets on Tickets for Less instead of StubHub because of this. This kind of goodwill PR works.

ssharp 11y ago

I'm a season ticket holder for an NBA team that runs its own secondary market for tickets. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I can't use services like StubHub to list my tickets for sale because the tickets are locked down into the secondary market account. On the other hand, I've never seen crap like this happen on there. I was lucky/smart enough to list all the games I couldn't attend at multiples of face value and adjust the price as the game dates come closer. This worked out well with my tickets to the game against the Lakers because they sold pretty quickly after Kobe's announcement. I definitely didn't get full market value for them, but people were getting their tickets poached at far less because they set them for a pre-retirement announcement value. Since the Lakers stink and it was a weekday game, that value was probably below face value. But with the market we're forced to use, you can't take your tickets back, which is clearly a good thing.

joshuaheard 11y ago

That's clearly a breach of contract. The buyer could sue the seller for damages.

eli 11y ago
The buyer already got their money back, so what is the damage? Sure if the buyer booked a nonrefundable plane ticket in anticipation of going to the game, that would be something. Absent something like that, I'm not sure there's a case.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  The damage is that "getting money back after the transaction wasn't finalized" wasn't a consensual part of the contract. You buy a car from me. A -month- later I show up and say, "Yeah, sorry, I sold this car by accident, here's your money." and I take off with the car regardless of what you want to do, you have a case against me for theft. Whether the buyer got his money back is irrelevant - that doesn't give the seller the retroactive ability to void the sale.

dbot 11y ago

I have to admit that I always assumed Stubhub took some kind of ownership interest in the tickets either (1) once posted; or (2) once sold through Stubhub. Situations like this make it clear why it's in their interest not to do so.

macleanjr 11y ago
For sports teams/venues that partner with them, they do. When I sell my hockey tickets on stubhub, they place my tickets on hold with Tickets.com, and once sold, my physical tickets can no longer be used to gain entry to the event. The tickets that the buyer receives has a new barcode on them, so they can rest assured they won't have an issue at the gate.

strommen 11y ago

Update: StubHub, via their Twitter account, has promised to get this guy to the Kobe game. https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024 https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/684906796813697024

herbig 11y ago
Not good enough. They should also announce how they're going to fix this situation in the future.
golergka 11y ago
Did the promise not to cancel orders that they received the payment for in the future?
- strommen 11y ago
  How could they possibly make that promise? They don't own the tickets, and they're not really selling them. They're facilitating a transaction between two parties.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    They could stop making it profitable to cancel to the point of assisting in the cancel, at the very least. They could threaten to sue by themselves when the seller breaches contract on a major purchase. They could improve their guarantee.
  - michaelt 11y ago
    Well, in this case the order was "confirmed" then later StubHub claimed the tickets were "listed in error" which is an obvious lie. So for a start, they could start not obviously lying to their customers. They could also add automatic sanity checking on listings, so sellers cannot accidentally list tickets at too low a price; and a manual offer acceptance stage in case the seller has chosen to list on multiple marketplaces. They could also require that when a seller is selling a ticket, that the seller proves they actually have the ticket. If stubhub want to facilitate sellers engaging in speculation by selling tickets they don't own, they could clearly mark such listings, with the seller placing a security deposit so their obligations can be met even if the market moves substantially against them. In the event a seller works around these protections (such as by submitting fake proof they have the ticket, or refusing to meet their obligations if the market price of a ticket they shorted exceeds their deposit) stubhub could take care of forcing the seller to meet their obligations.

donretag 11y ago

The seller probably never had tickets in the first place, which is why they had to cancel the order, since they would have taken a huge loss trying to flip tickets. It happens all the time with big events: tickets will appear on StubHub before they even go on sale to the general public. Speculators will gauge interests using StubHub for tickets they do not even own. If they make a StubHub purchase, they have time to find a cheaper ticker to cover the transaction.

QuotedForTruth 11y ago
How can they do this for events that have specific seats. Its not a general admission event. They sold this guy certain seats.
- donretag 11y ago
  Great point, my mistake. Ultimately, StubHub policies that condone speculative selling (not releasing tickets at purchase time), allowed the seller to renege on the agreement.

gepgaewpk 11y ago

The real winner here is Tickets For Less.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

If the seller changed their mind and pulled their tickets then StubHub should own up and say so. The tickets weren't listed "incorrectly". They were sold correctly but then the seller refused to forward the tickets when the price changed. StubHub and similar services should also guarantee ticket possession within 7 days. If you buy the tickets you get the tickets immediately. It's bullshit that you buy the tickets but don't receive them for weeks or months. That's too big of a window to let sellers change their mind. I bought tickets through SeatGeek via BigTicket for on November, 19th for a January 7th show (tonight!). I wasn't told at time of purchase that my tickets would not be delivered until after January 1st. In fact I wasn't told until I e-mailed customer support and asked where the hell my e-mail delivery tickets were. I expect e-mail delivery to be instantaneous. Not 7 weeks later and 6 days before showtime. What if the Lakers ticket seller had until the final week to deliver tickets? If they're expensive today they'll be even more expensive then! This is inexcusable and StubHub is fully responsible for the situation. They do not get to shift blame to the seller.

mbcrower 11y ago
StubHub could easily look at the historic pricing data and the normal cancellation rates for tickets. If the cancellation rate is normally low, except for instances where the ticket price suddenly jumped, then any cancellations in that time frame would likely have a high probability of being fraudulent, especially if the same tickets were later relisted through the same sellers account.
FireBeyond 11y ago
"What if the Lakers ticket seller had until the final week to deliver tickets? If they're expensive today they'll be even more expensive then!" If it was a season-ticket holder (genuine or 'bought for bulk discount at resale'), they'll only get them from the Lakers 4 days prior to the game anyway.

kentt 11y ago

The is normal for stubhub. Here's an article from last where the same thing happened to a friend of mine: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/super-bowl-tickets-stubhub-ebay-sellers-leave-diehard-b-c-seahawks-fan-ticketless-1.2938040 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/super-bowl-ti... tldr, bought tickets for Superbowl, prices went up, order was cancelled, was refunded and given credit which would not cover the cost of the increased cost of tickets. Then repeated the same thing with another reseller.

the_watcher 11y ago

Enjoyed the guy in the comments from Tickets for Less offering him four complimentary, better seats to the game.

kin 11y ago

He's getting 4 free ticket from Budweiser in section 112 and 4 free tickets in section 106 personally delivered by the CEO of Tickets For Less. Now, Stubhub has apologized and promised to get him to the game. If I were him I'd deny the Stubhub tickets regardless of how good they are. Budweiser tickets are middle bottom level section (great view) while Tickets for Less are offering behind the backboard seats. Both are better than the original location he purchased.

alexc05 11y ago
I've found this one in the comments: > Jason Durbin · VP of Ticket Operations at Tickets For Less > Jesse Sandler – I’m the VP of Ticket Operations at > Tickets For Less. We’ve reached out to > TheLeadSports.com and are trying to contact you. > We have four seats for you in section 106 for Kobe’s > last home game. Please contact me or our President Dan > Rouen at 913-685-3322. > Like · Reply · 1228 · 23 hrs But where is the Budweiser comment?
- kin 11y ago
  https://twitter.com/Budweiser/status/684878816959856640 https://twitter.com/Budweiser/status/684878816959856640

pklausler 11y ago

It would be interesting to find out who's sitting in these seats at game time and how they got their tickets.

brk 11y ago

Really this just shows how corrupt and broken the entire entertainment ticketing stack is. TicketMaster, StubHub, etc., all prey on fans, and the fans ALLOW it by paying ridiculous fucking prices to attend events. We're long past the days of needing an entity like Ticketmaster to be in the middle of ticket transactions. And we're long past the days of needing to worry about ticket scalping if we actually have an efficient ticketing system.

smt88 11y ago
> fans ALLOW it by paying ridiculous fucking prices to attend events No, fans have no choice. Entertainers allow it by using Ticketmaster. > We're long past the days of needing an entity like Ticketmaster to be in the middle of ticket transactions The greatest fear an event planner has is that they'll plan the event and no one will show up. Ticketmaster aggressively markets the events they're selling tickets for, which is why event planners continue to use them. Sure, you could use a homegrown solution or a smaller company, but Ticketmaster unethically adds all purchasers to a bunch of mailing lists and makes it really difficult to unsubscribe, and then they can claim "X million mailing list subscribers" to the event marketers.
- talmand 11y ago
  So, to avoid having to do marketing themselves, or to hire a firm, the event planner goes with a possibly corrupt system that by all appearances the fans of the event despise? I'm more of the mind that these things are so entrenched that neither fans or event planners have a choice.
  - slg 11y ago
    The role Ticketmaster plays in the live event business is much bigger than simple middlemen. They provide the previously mentioned marketing, promotion, and discovery. They provide box office management. They provide customer service. They manage the secondary market. They provide business intelligence. They represent artists. They even own their own venues for a complete vertical monopoly. They are the Amazon Web Services of the live event business. Sure, you will probably have a better experience if you use Backblaze for your storage, but AWS provides so many other services you might need that it makes sense to consolidate your business with them. That is why Ticketmaster is so entrenched. It isn't corruption. There is just a huge barrier to entry when your biggest competitor has such a complete product offering.

ijustwanttovote 11y ago

I bought tickets to the New Year's Game, and I couldn't list it for sale on stubhub the day of. I had to use their Last Minute Services, but the office was closed.

DrScump 11y ago
They got rid of LMS for all but the largest metro areas (not even Bay Area events have LMS coverage for Sharks, Warriors, or baseball anymore)... not even for the NBA playoffs.

DannyBee 11y ago

Most of these comments ask how this is legal, when the guy owns the tickets, etc. The "when the guy owns the ticket" part is a question of title. Let's take a gander at yon UCC, which covers these questions in most cases in most of the US. https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-401 https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-401 Blah blah blah blah. I'm too lazy to read all the stubhub fine print again, but last time i did, it said nothing. That means, in circumstances like these, title passes to buyer when physical delivery of goods occurs. That's when the buyer owns the tickets. The rest of the questions are pretty standard breach of contract and damages questions, which others seem to have covered. Here, the buyer would definitely have recourse against the seller (but probably not against stubhub). Of course, stubhub is being stupid in this case too, there are a variety of mechanisms it could use to prevent this from happening (escrow, charging sellers difference in current price vs old price if they reneg on tickets that have gone up more than, say, 100% in price, etc). Sadly, it looks like Stubhub also has a financial incentive to let this happen, since they make 20% of the price.

DrScump 11y ago

People need to realize that buying from Stubhub guarantees you only this: if your order isn't filled (or is filled with bogus tickets) and we can't find you tickets we consider equivalent or better at some point (even during the game, then you'll get a refund). The only thing "guaranteed" is your payment. (You might also get additional credit toward a future purchase.) People need to be aware of this when buying major-event tickets: they are happy to "walk" you (give you no ticket alternatives at all) if it's at all costly to cover a bogus sale. I've seen it a number of times at their pickup sites. So, for example, if this happens at a Super Bowl, you are still out all of your transportation, lodging, and other expenses.