7 ms·

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

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.
    - FireBeyond 11y ago
      For Lakers games and season ticket holders, TicketMaster doesn't 'e-print' the ticket until 96 hours before tip off, to try to minimize ticket resale (which it doesn't, or only marginally, because they're counting on people not being able to keep track of that - which StubHub helpfully does).
      - DrScump 11y ago
        The 49ers did that this season (72 hours)... one of many ways they pissed off the season ticket base.
  - hotgoldminer 11y ago
    Age old problem. It is why PayPal exists. Arbitrage on transactions where trust is a problem. SH could warranty to make a comparable ticket available on any consummated transaction - probably they should given the reputational loss they've incurred.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      They currently guarantee "comparable replacement tickets or send you a refund." It sounds like in practice they try for the "comparable replacement tickets" first... except that according to them there were none in this case, because all the remaining tickets were really expensive!
      - hotgoldminer 11y ago
        Eesh. Comparable replacement tickets refers to a similar seat at the same event - price really isn't a factor. Nice piece of acrobatics on their lawyer's part tho.
        mikeash 11y ago
        Yeah, sometimes you just have to sit back and be impressed, even if it's ridiculous.
- pc86 11y ago
  > in such a way that it is physically impossible for the seller to take back ownership without the cooperation of the buyer. I'm not sure how this is logistically possible without the seller sending SH tickets when he or she wants to sell them, in which case we'd just be reading an article about how SH accidentally sent out $6k in tickets that were never paid for.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Why would you need to send them to SH? It would go like: buyer pays, seller gives buyer tickets. "Give" may mean mailing physical tickets, or an electronic transfer. It sounds like there are some ticket issuers which make this impossible, but I don't see how giving tickets to SH makes any difference.
    - kedean 11y ago
      Because someone needs to hold them in escrow, otherwise it's a 'he said she said' argument. How would SH know whether or not the seller actually withheld the tickets, if they've never seen proof that the tickets even exist? That or they just assume the buyer is always right and take a hit.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        You're right, for paper tickets there needs to be a trusted third party that handles them. There's no need to send the tickets in advance, but once the sale occurs, you'd really have to send them through StubHub or another third party. I see no reason StubHub couldn't do this, of course. They could even spin it as a feature: the seller never learns your address and your privacy is protected! For electronic tickets, whatever service sells the ticket could act as the trusted third party. Get the seller to provide whatever confirmation/order/transfer numbers are appropriate and check them with the ticket issuer's system.
        DrScump 11y ago
        You're right, for paper tickets there needs to be a trusted third party that handles them Stubhub does no such thing. For physical tickets, seller ships to buyer. For PDF tickets, seller just uploads them; the upload constitutes delivery. For events that Stubhub lacks hooks into the ticketing system (mostly baseball), they do nothing to vet tickets. Buyers are advised to create a listing in TicketExchange (or whomever is the official marketplace) to (1) validate the tickets and (2) lock them to prevent forwarding or TicketExchange sale by a prior holder.
- matwood 11y ago
  A lot of tickets are just in time to the seller. When I have been to the Kentucky Derby for example, I bought 2 day tickets on StubHub that will not ship to the seller until 2 weeks or so before the event. I then resold the other day on the ticket either on StubHub or Ebay. I imagine for some events there is this entire chain of sell/buy/sell/buy going on.
- DrScump 11y ago
  Stubhub can charge a violating seller. Or, try to. Stubhub actually has a huge fraud exposure. The seller is paid within days of the buyer receiving the tickets, even if the event is much later. If the tickets were counterfeit in the first place, or invalidated later, Stubhub can only hope that the credit card the seller signed up with is still valid... or ever was. Meanwhile, the buyer gets a refund (eventually) or a substitute (if prices have dropped).
mathgeek 11y ago
> SH has no mechanism to ensure delivery of the ticket. StubHub fully supports digital tickets that are immediately delivered upon purchase. They should, IMHO, require this when it's available.
- DrScump 11y ago
  In fact, most Stubhub tickets are electronic ONLY after about 3 business days before the event. But they do nothing to validate the PDFs (not even to check for unaltered PDFs)
bradleyjg 11y ago
Does Stubhub release the sellers information to the buyer? It looks to me like the buyer has a claim in contract against the seller for $5100. That's within the small claim limit in California.
- eli 11y ago
  IANAL, but I think you'd have a hard time convincing a judge of that math.
  - etherealmachine 11y ago
    Curious - why do you think that? The seller obviously sold the tickets for a higher price, and can be forced to give the buyer the price difference, allowing the buyer to buy new tickets at the new price, fulfilling the purpose of the original contract. Why do you think a judge would disagree?
    - CPLX 11y ago
      It's not obvious they sold for a higher price, they may have used them or never had them. But the real problem is proving an actual loss. There was a contract to exchange X tickets for Y money. Nothing changed hands, the buyer didn't lose anything, there aren't any damages to sue for. Obviously they could try a cause of action for lost opportunity to profit from the transaction from legal standpoint, but it's much harder to claim losses from hypothetical things that never happened than to unwind an actual transaction. What if Kobe was injured and the price of the tickets plummeted for example? It's a stretch to argue that the buyer lost something tangible by relying on the sellers performance of the contract.
      - tacon 11y ago
        Your "legal analysis" is woefully lacking. Have you, for example, ever glanced at a Contracts Law text book? Or read the Wikipedia articles about contract law? Heck, have you even watched The People's Court? Just you sitting in your armchair and coming up with something that seems reasonable in your mind does not a legal argument make, or refute. As far as profiting from hypothetical things that never happened, see Joe Jamail: http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-man-who-crushed-texaco/ http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-man-who-crushed-tex... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance
karzeem 11y ago
They could charge sellers the greater of the purchase price or the market price of the ticket at the time of cancellation.
- mbcrower 11y ago
  They could, but to business like StubHub each seller is probably more precious than each buyer. I'm not saying it's fair, but it's a lot easier for them to find new buyers than sellers.
- DrScump 11y ago
  ... assuming that the seller didn't abscond with the payment and cancel the credit card used to guarantee the transaction long ago.
diogenescynic 11y ago
>SH has no mechanism to ensure delivery of the ticket...so how can SH compel them to hand it over Sure they do, just don't release funds until the tracking number shows the tickets have been delivered or the PDF has been uploaded.
- DrScump 11y ago
  They do that, now. But having a ticket doesn't mean that it will be valid at the gate... or was ever valid.

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.
  - FireBeyond 11y ago
    For Lakers games and season ticket holders, TicketMaster doesn't 'e-print' the ticket until 96 hours before tip off, to try to minimize ticket resale (which it doesn't, or only marginally, because they're counting on people not being able to keep track of that - which StubHub helpfully does).
    - DrScump 11y ago
      The 49ers did that this season (72 hours)... one of many ways they pissed off the season ticket base.
- hotgoldminer 11y ago
  Age old problem. It is why PayPal exists. Arbitrage on transactions where trust is a problem. SH could warranty to make a comparable ticket available on any consummated transaction - probably they should given the reputational loss they've incurred.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    They currently guarantee "comparable replacement tickets or send you a refund." It sounds like in practice they try for the "comparable replacement tickets" first... except that according to them there were none in this case, because all the remaining tickets were really expensive!
    - hotgoldminer 11y ago
      Eesh. Comparable replacement tickets refers to a similar seat at the same event - price really isn't a factor. Nice piece of acrobatics on their lawyer's part tho.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Yeah, sometimes you just have to sit back and be impressed, even if it's ridiculous.
pc86 11y ago
> in such a way that it is physically impossible for the seller to take back ownership without the cooperation of the buyer. I'm not sure how this is logistically possible without the seller sending SH tickets when he or she wants to sell them, in which case we'd just be reading an article about how SH accidentally sent out $6k in tickets that were never paid for.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Why would you need to send them to SH? It would go like: buyer pays, seller gives buyer tickets. "Give" may mean mailing physical tickets, or an electronic transfer. It sounds like there are some ticket issuers which make this impossible, but I don't see how giving tickets to SH makes any difference.
  - kedean 11y ago
    Because someone needs to hold them in escrow, otherwise it's a 'he said she said' argument. How would SH know whether or not the seller actually withheld the tickets, if they've never seen proof that the tickets even exist? That or they just assume the buyer is always right and take a hit.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      You're right, for paper tickets there needs to be a trusted third party that handles them. There's no need to send the tickets in advance, but once the sale occurs, you'd really have to send them through StubHub or another third party. I see no reason StubHub couldn't do this, of course. They could even spin it as a feature: the seller never learns your address and your privacy is protected! For electronic tickets, whatever service sells the ticket could act as the trusted third party. Get the seller to provide whatever confirmation/order/transfer numbers are appropriate and check them with the ticket issuer's system.
      - DrScump 11y ago
        You're right, for paper tickets there needs to be a trusted third party that handles them Stubhub does no such thing. For physical tickets, seller ships to buyer. For PDF tickets, seller just uploads them; the upload constitutes delivery. For events that Stubhub lacks hooks into the ticketing system (mostly baseball), they do nothing to vet tickets. Buyers are advised to create a listing in TicketExchange (or whomever is the official marketplace) to (1) validate the tickets and (2) lock them to prevent forwarding or TicketExchange sale by a prior holder.
matwood 11y ago
A lot of tickets are just in time to the seller. When I have been to the Kentucky Derby for example, I bought 2 day tickets on StubHub that will not ship to the seller until 2 weeks or so before the event. I then resold the other day on the ticket either on StubHub or Ebay. I imagine for some events there is this entire chain of sell/buy/sell/buy going on.
DrScump 11y ago
Stubhub can charge a violating seller. Or, try to. Stubhub actually has a huge fraud exposure. The seller is paid within days of the buyer receiving the tickets, even if the event is much later. If the tickets were counterfeit in the first place, or invalidated later, Stubhub can only hope that the credit card the seller signed up with is still valid... or ever was. Meanwhile, the buyer gets a refund (eventually) or a substitute (if prices have dropped).

mathgeek 11y ago

> SH has no mechanism to ensure delivery of the ticket. StubHub fully supports digital tickets that are immediately delivered upon purchase. They should, IMHO, require this when it's available.

DrScump 11y ago
In fact, most Stubhub tickets are electronic ONLY after about 3 business days before the event. But they do nothing to validate the PDFs (not even to check for unaltered PDFs)

bradleyjg 11y ago

Does Stubhub release the sellers information to the buyer? It looks to me like the buyer has a claim in contract against the seller for $5100. That's within the small claim limit in California.

eli 11y ago
IANAL, but I think you'd have a hard time convincing a judge of that math.
- etherealmachine 11y ago
  Curious - why do you think that? The seller obviously sold the tickets for a higher price, and can be forced to give the buyer the price difference, allowing the buyer to buy new tickets at the new price, fulfilling the purpose of the original contract. Why do you think a judge would disagree?
  - CPLX 11y ago
    It's not obvious they sold for a higher price, they may have used them or never had them. But the real problem is proving an actual loss. There was a contract to exchange X tickets for Y money. Nothing changed hands, the buyer didn't lose anything, there aren't any damages to sue for. Obviously they could try a cause of action for lost opportunity to profit from the transaction from legal standpoint, but it's much harder to claim losses from hypothetical things that never happened than to unwind an actual transaction. What if Kobe was injured and the price of the tickets plummeted for example? It's a stretch to argue that the buyer lost something tangible by relying on the sellers performance of the contract.
    - tacon 11y ago
      Your "legal analysis" is woefully lacking. Have you, for example, ever glanced at a Contracts Law text book? Or read the Wikipedia articles about contract law? Heck, have you even watched The People's Court? Just you sitting in your armchair and coming up with something that seems reasonable in your mind does not a legal argument make, or refute. As far as profiting from hypothetical things that never happened, see Joe Jamail: http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-man-who-crushed-texaco/ http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-man-who-crushed-tex... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance

karzeem 11y ago

They could charge sellers the greater of the purchase price or the market price of the ticket at the time of cancellation.

mbcrower 11y ago
They could, but to business like StubHub each seller is probably more precious than each buyer. I'm not saying it's fair, but it's a lot easier for them to find new buyers than sellers.
DrScump 11y ago
... assuming that the seller didn't abscond with the payment and cancel the credit card used to guarantee the transaction long ago.

diogenescynic 11y ago

>SH has no mechanism to ensure delivery of the ticket...so how can SH compel them to hand it over Sure they do, just don't release funds until the tracking number shows the tickets have been delivered or the PDF has been uploaded.

DrScump 11y ago
They do that, now. But having a ticket doesn't mean that it will be valid at the gate... or was ever valid.