7 ms·

Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

270 points by surye 9y ago

AngelloPozo 9y ago
Providing a user with a list of recently or relevant tickets being sold is cool. But Manually adding them to a user list does not help the customer. Especially if they mark them as sold after being "available".
dyladan 9y ago
Creating a false sense of urgency is a cornerstone of modern marketing. The only difference between this and any other marketing campaign is that you just happened to catch them this time. This is just like when you go to an electronics store and they put the super expensive tv (almost) nobody buys right next to the still very expensive but comparably more modest model. You are more likely to buy that second tv even if costs more than you initially budgeted because your brain tells you that this is the cheaper model with _almost_ the same features as the flagship tv. For another example, many ecommerce sites will list the number available in stock if it is low, and sometimes will just say "few available" without specifying a number. This creates the same (sometimes false) sense of urgency.
- jordancolburn 9y ago
  Yeah, but to stick with the analogy, isn't this more like putting out empty boxes of TVs that have already been sold and having employees dressed as customers frantically buying them in front of regular customers. Thanks for reading btw, and thanks to whoever posted it here.
  - dyladan 9y ago
    If an electronics retailer could do this at no additional cost, I have no doubt that they would.
  - jmdocherty 9y ago
    ...or like the employee just shouting rather loudly across the showroom floor to a colleague: "Hey Joe we just sold another one of the <insert TV you happen to be looking at>. That's the 3rd one today - we better order some more before we run out of stock"
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    Which apparently is done at some of the new hip restaurants. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/16/see-the-hipsters-lined-up-outside-that-new-restaurant-this-app-pays-them-to-stand-there/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/1...
    - seanp2k2 9y ago
      Hmm, I wonder if Amazon was doing this with their new store at Santana Row in SJ: https://imgur.com/a/qSVYG https://imgur.com/a/qSVYG
  - bigiain 9y ago
    "Here at stooge.io, we're disrupting the Shilling industry with our AI driven machine learning auto-shilling platform. Our PlantBot(tm) is a blockchain auditable marketing urgency generation tool."
- c3534l 9y ago
  Creating a false sense of urgency is different from creating a sense of urgency through falsehood.
- polemic 9y ago
  > This is just like when you go to an electronics store and they put the super expensive tv (almost) nobody buys right next to the still very expensive but comparably more modest model. You are more likely to buy that second tv even if costs more than you initially budgeted because your brain tells you that this is the cheaper model with _almost_ the same features as the flagship tv. I disagree that these are equivalent. Product differentiation exists in part to ensure you leave no money on the table -- if someone is cashed up and wants to pay 50% more for an extra 2 inches on the screen size, then you let them. Conversely, for the people who are super price conscious you have the very low margin end of line product hidden at the back. You alway maximise price by ensuring you have what they want at a price they're willing to pay. Generally this is fair and works well for consumers. But here we have prices that you _cannot_ pay. It's a dark pattern akin to bait and switch techniques that should (and might) be illegal.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  "The only difference between this and any other marketing campaign is that you just happened to catch them this time." I'm not sure this is fair. By displaying false information, they are point-blank lying. That's misinformation. It should be illegal - it could be. Some other tricks such as 'creating very expensive items which they never expect to sell' as a cognitive 'price anchor' - well, not quite the same thing. I suggest there is a distinction between falsehoods and other forms of tricks. In the end it probably doesn't matter, but I wouldn't mind one bit if there was some consumer protections concerning this.
  - interstitial 9y ago
    growth hacking, bro! </sarcasm>
  - curun1r 9y ago
    > By displaying false information, they are point-blank lying. That's misinformation. As a devil's advocate, despite the presentation being scummy, there's definite consumer value to seeing tickets that sold. It helps correct an information imbalance between sellers and buyers. If all you saw were available tickets, you'd have no way of knowing whether they were being priced above market or not. By showing you two sales, provided they're actually real sales and picked arbitrarily (i.e. not picking the most expensive sales), they're giving you information about what other buyers are willing to pay for tickets. It's like seeing real estate comps...sure the houses have already been sold, but it helps you get a feel for whether the one you're looking at is being sold for a fair price.
    - alexasmyths 9y ago
      "there's definite consumer value to seeing tickets that sold. It helps correct an information imbalance between sellers and buyers." I don't think you're playing the devil's advocate. By all means - they and and as you indicate - maybe should show recent tickets sold. That's valuable information. But what they are showing is made up data. Not good. And definitely 'anti valuable'.
      - 9y ago
- bluetwo 9y ago
  This might be illegal according to FTC regulations. CFR 16 section 232.2 says: "Another commonly used form of bargain advertising is to offer goods at prices lower than those being charged by others for the same merchandise in the advertiser's trade area (the area in which he does business). This may be done either on a temporary or a permanent basis, but in either case the advertised higher price must be based upon fact, and not be fictitious or misleading."
- gertef 9y ago
  Nothing modern about it, it's one of the classic old selling techniques.
  - jpeterman 9y ago
    "Act now while supplies last"
  - smt88 9y ago
    What historical examples can you give where a seller made products look popular using fake customers purchasing unavailable products? It'd be like seeing a line for a new video game system, and everyone in the line was paid to be there and won't be buying it.
- Roshie5u 9y ago
  > sometimes will just say "few available" without specifying a number I don't think it is a good example. It is often a real technical limitation - they aren't able to keep consistent inventory count between branches, warehouses and internet sites. Other reason for "few available" is some form of dropshipping - they don't really have any items.
- mandeepj 9y ago
  This is analogous to when an unknown Joe creates a new course he specify in italics that only few seats left even though nobody have signed up yet. It is all to just create a rush.
klodolph 9y ago
The key deception with StubHub is that you're not actually buying tickets, you're actually giving away put options for free.
- ghostly_s 9y ago
  Huh?
  - arjie 9y ago
    Once upon a time, a guy bought tickets for a basketball game on Stubhub. Some months after he bought the ticket, superstar Kobe Bryant announced that it was going to be his last game. Ticket prices shot up and the buyer was thrilled that he still had a ticket. However, the seller was equally unenthused by the idea of having sold his ticket at so much under its now-increased value. So he cancelled the sale. There was a big fuss, and Stubhub gave the one buyer a ticket to the game. If you give someone a put option for some quantity on something, they then get the power to sell that amount of that something to you at a specific price. Usually, you want to get money in exchange for giving someone that power. In the markets, this is called selling someone a put option. This chap's point is that you could agree to buy a ticket for $150 to see Kobe Bryant on Stubhub. This doesn't mean you get a ticket. This just means you gave someone on Stubhub the option to sell you a ticket at $150 because if the price rises to $1500, he's going to choose not to sell you that ticket by doing what the seller did in the previous case. Since you get no money for giving the seller the power, you're not selling the option, you're giving it away for free. That's probably the context to his comment. I neither agree nor disagree with it.
    - klodolph 9y ago
      This isn't just a one time thing, it's how StubHub operates. They will even "sell" tickets with no inventory and then not exercise the option if they can't fulfill it profitably.
  - monksy 9y ago
    The other issue is that the venue for the ticket in most cases can reject you for any reason. (Typically venues don't do this.. but they will). Bought Chris Rock tickets a long time ago with the impression that they didn't have any special terms on them. Nothing unusual in the terms. The ticket was a standard Ticketmaster ticket. Showed up to the Chicago Theather this weekend and they were forcing people to put their phones in a locked bag. I didn't agree to those terms, so I refused. I got denied entry. (Btw Talked with ticketmaster support about this and they said this was an venue issue, the event didn't have any special terms attached)
agjacobson 9y ago
Many people lack a gut level understanding of this concept: a vendor who deep discounts or sells at cost can generate almost arbitrarily large revenues. For a while.
- wolfgang42 9y ago
  How is this relevant to the post at hand?
patmcguire 9y ago
"ugrency-message"
- jordancolburn 9y ago
  I actually didn't catch that typo they made the first time as I was so shocked at how easy it was to force it to keep reloading already sold tickets.
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
Music Festivals use this same concept. By having pricing tiers for tickets you can have more "sold out" events, as they happen at each stage, driving interest. It works, and it is REAL unlike the javascript you see here, but it is still stupid. Can you imagine going to a Donut shop in the morning that had just sold 10% of its daily inventory and them putting up a SOLD OUT sign for Tier 1 Early Bird donuts? I hope one day marketers find a better solution for generating interest in their products.
- jordancolburn 9y ago
  Good point. Races (5k, marathon, etc) do that also to encourage people to sign up early. I think it's dumb, but at least the festival tier thing is honest. It's the dishonesty that kills me. The reason I think I was bugged enough to look into it is that I fell for the trick. I knew it's going to be a sold out game, so I assumed it was real traffic/user actions and almost let that influence my purchasing decisions.
  - yermom 9y ago
    off-topic, but if you want to go, just go. unless scalping is different than almost anywhere i've been in the country(check local laws, Arlington, TX is dumb) you can usually get in for less than stubhub prices. it helps to find the people the scalpers are looking to buy from before they do we got into the OU/OSU game in Columbus for less than face i've only paid appreciably more than face once, and that was when OU played Florida in Miami for the national championship in 2009 i don't have hard numbers, but i've done this over fifty times in the last 10+ years, both coasts, bowl games, etc... mostly college football, but a couple NFL games as well. there have even been a few times where i was nervous and bought tickets beforehand because it was a big game, and then regretted it when i got there and found cheaper better seats than what i could get beforehand. i worry that sites like stubhub could stifle availability at games if more people try to just sell online instead of taking them to the stadium hasn't seemed to have been an issue yet though. i'm afraid the venues could make more tickets non-transferable and force you into stubhub so they could get a cut of the secondary market, it could actually make it more expensive to get tickets in the end for average events, low end tickets anyway
bau5 9y ago
If they'd used a minifier, most or all of this embarrassment could have been avoided.
- jordancolburn 9y ago
  I was pretty surprised, but maybe they were hoping for security by obscurity as it was buried a little in the sources. I don't think devs as a whole have really grasped a lot of the trade-offs/repercussions of moving so much logic to the client side.
- zeveb 9y ago
  WebAssembly will help hide this!
  - BHSPitMonkey 9y ago
    Wouldn't decompiled/disassembled wasm code be about as readable as unminified JavaScript?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Not if there was a proper optimization pass while compiling.
mcescalante 9y ago
I have gone to Stubhub a few times now to try to replicate this, and searched for tickets for popular NFL and MLB teams, and I can't get this "Sold" thing to work the way this posts shows it - actually it doesn't happen at all for me. Has anyone else been able to replicate the "sold after load" behavior? Is it only on specific events?
- jordancolburn 9y ago
  Maybe, they had some other junk about AB test flags and I didn't dig far enough to see how that was set or if it was random from the server. My wild guess is that they turn it on for popular events close to the time of the event, so there is less chance of users noticing.
  - mcescalante 9y ago
    Yeah, that's likely the case. I do not see the urgency message in my session data for this NFL game (suggesting it won't do it's sold out thing for this event) but I do see something in my local storage called "cache:local:app:urgencyMessageData"
mbesto 9y ago
But growth hacking right? In all seriousness, I love how techniques like this are "ok" when the company is considered a "startup", but when it suddenly becomes "evil megacorp", it's all of the sudden considered deception.
- tyrust 9y ago
  I'd be surprised if anyone would think that this is ok for a company of any size.
  - StuieK 9y ago
    Go look at the "discounts" on Wish vs the Amazon prices. Big company now, 100% lying directly to the consumer.
    - tyrust 9y ago
      I'm not familiar with Wish and it appears that I need an account to look at their site. More relevant to my comment, I am not familiar with public sentiment of Wish.
  - anon1385 9y ago
    You're on a YC website. They are open about looking for founders who do these kinds of things. Keep in mind that YC invested in a startup that was running a service that added malware to software installers and when people called them out on it Paul Graham defended it and said they were doing nothing wrong because there was a tiny "pwn my machine" checkbox in the installer, and if people didn't uncheck that then clearly they wanted a load of malware installed. I've been writing comments about this kind of thing on HN for years. This one was 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051099
- astura 9y ago
  StubHub is owned by eBay.
  - 9y ago
artursapek 9y ago
Some poor programmer had to grit his teeth and implement this while pressured by his "agile" "product" "manager" to "finish the sprint".
- root_axis 9y ago
  Probably not that poor after having received his check for doing so.
  - artursapek 9y ago
    I meant poor in more of a higher fulfillment sense
krrrh 9y ago
Booking.com are the all-time kings of this approach. The search results page is littered with highlighted messages like. “4 people are looking at this room now” “2 people just booked at this hotel” “Too bad you already missed out on this hot deal” “X% of the neighbourhood/city/region you’re looking at is already booked!” ... It’s quite likely real information, but the timeframes and language are vague enough to make you feel like you’ve got about 5 minutes to lock a room down. They do such a good job at instilling anxiety that you feel like you achieved something important when you finally book.
- koolba 9y ago
  The "... just booked this hotel!" is the funniest because they make it seem like they booked it for the dates you're searching. In reality it's somebody booked the hotel, at some point in the past X (minutes? hours? days?), for some dates in the future that more than likely have nothing to do with when you plan on being there.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  As soon as I bring up any website using this plugin and its constant stupid popups ("Amy in Georgia just bought these socks!"), I just click the back button.
- wtvanhest 9y ago
  This literally happened to me yesterday. I knew the tricks, it didn't matter. It pressured me so hard and made the shopping experience so terrible.
- klistwan 9y ago
  Someone recently wrote about their dark patterns, and how sometimes it's actually false information: https://medium.com/@ilyadoroshin/bad-ux-how-booking-com-deceives-clients-5dc9e9485f32 https://medium.com/@ilyadoroshin/bad-ux-how-booking-com-dece...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Roshie5u 9y ago
joeax 9y ago
Just to be clear, it isn't that it's taking the top few listings and randomly marking as sold, but that the code is going out and retrieving what appear to be already sold listings (as stored in the urgencyMessageListings variable), and just injecting the top 2 from that array randomly in positions 1-5 in the main list (through a Array.splice() call). While somewhat deceiving, it's not as bad as marking tickets that haven't sold as sold. Imagine if you were trying to sell your tix at the last minute, well that would be bad. (I've sold tix at the last minute before and that would scare me.)
- preinheimer 9y ago
  To me the problem here is the transition: they appear available then are marked as sold. Had they appeared sold from the start, that would have been fine. But by transitioning them they've stated a timeline for their sale which is incorrect.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mcescalante 9y ago
This reminds me of this tweet about Verzion's "agents waiting" implementation on their website fetching the real count one time and then randomly changing via Math.random(): https://twitter.com/mixonic/status/736575632226852865?lang=en https://twitter.com/mixonic/status/736575632226852865?lang=e...
hartator 9y ago
I haven't heard of this website before. Don't forget that bad publicity is still publicity.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >>I haven't heard of this website before. StubHub is widely, widely known to anyone who attends music events or sporting events. It's the largest exchange by a lot. They don't need bad publicity to spread the word.
- hatcherdogg 9y ago
  Sometimes. Unless bad publicity causes regular users to stop contributing revenue.
hatcherdogg 9y ago
SH: Deceive until we get caught, then we will 'listen' to our customers and adapt. Blegh.
chasb 9y ago
I wonder if the FTC would be interested in this. Section 5 of the FTC Act lets the agency regulate deceptive marketing practices. The FTC's test for deception has three requirements: 1. There must be a representation, omission, or practice that misleads or is likely to mislead the consumer. 2. The act or practice must be considered from the perspective of the reasonable consumer. 3. The representation, omission, or practice must be material. The post suggests StubHub is making very specific misrepresentations about specific ticket rights; the tactic here would deceive a reasonable consumer; and the misrepresentation is made to induce the sale.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  I think they key is that they're pulling ticket that are actually sold out: > When you load a page they get a list of tickets that have already sold I'm sure they could argue that since they are real tickets are actually sold out then they're not actually being deceptive. I really hate these dark patterns - been getting worse and worse on travel sites.
  - chasb 9y ago
    Possibly, but here StubHub would have to explain why they displayed it as unsold with a delay, and why the FTC should not consider that deceptive. If the ticket was already sold, why the delay? A reasonable consumer think that specific ticket had just been sold at that moment, which sounds like a material misrepresentation.
    - dawnerd 9y ago
      Totally agree with you. Unfortunately, I don't have faith the FTC would side with consumers on this. Now, if Stubhub advertised the ticket as being available on a prior page knowing it was sold out...
      - diggernet 9y ago
        It was displayed as being available for a few seconds before it changed to sold...
pfedigan 9y ago
Where has ethics gone to in the corporate world? I also came across them displaying say only 4 tickets for what it seems like a sold out event but in reality it was never sold out and the prices were cheaper on the day of the actual event. I recall seeing something along the lines of the event being almost sold out. Maybe Stubhub only had 4 tickets during that time so I could be wrong. It is a sale from ticket holder to ticket holder.
- mst 9y ago
  > Where has ethics gone to in the corporate world? I suspect either "outcompeted" or "only required until you've crushed all of the competition who might use it to outcompete you". Neither is a particularly cheering thought.
swrobel 9y ago
They just disabled it, so I guess that’s a win...? https://twitter.com/stubhub/status/907384565085257729 https://twitter.com/stubhub/status/907384565085257729
jordancolburn 9y ago
Company responded and said they removed the "feature". They confirmed to me that it was part of an AB test (which I had seen in the code), but did not confirm or deny my suspicion that the AB was used to apply it only to events where it was less likely to be discovered. I was half-jokingly going to ask for tickets to the game, lol. But after they requested I post an update and clarify their response to removing the feature, it just felt wrong. I mean, I'm glad they removed it, but that's a pretty big thing to act like it should all just be OK and it's a "feature" users didn't like. And I think their urgency in removing it only shows how bad it really was, not how concerned they are for users. https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/907384565085257729 https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/907384565085257729
- kbenson 9y ago
  > And I think their urgency in removing it only shows how bad it really was, not how concerned they are for users. Well, that only really shows how bad it might be or was being perceived and whatever backlash it might generate. It's entirely possible to feel like you have to backpedal on something that was meant entirely for the good of others because it's perceived as self serving (not that this situation maps to that, I'm making a general point).
kbenson 9y ago
> if (!globals.hideUrgencyMessage && SH.mbox.justSoldEvent && urgencyMessageListings && urgencyMessageListings.length) { Have you considered that SH.mbox.justSoldEvent might be noting that there were recent sales, and while they weren't just sold as the page was loaded, the system may actually indicate that sales are happening and to be aware that the listings may not persist in the current state for long? As of right now, SH.mbox.justSoldEvent is undefined for me, but they may have specifically disabled the system (or only use it if there are sales but not too many). Looking at the seller's interface on SH for this, the last three transactions happened within 10 minutes of when I loaded the sales data, and each were for a pair. Looking at the sales data I can see that the two you had shown to you were consecutive transactions at 2017-09-11T17:45:40.000Z and 2017-09-11T17:38:55.000Z, which I'm willing to bet were the two most recent sales when you loaded the page. If that's what's going on, it's not only for SH's benefit. This also signals to buyers what's selling right now, and what migh be sold soon in case you are eyeing a particular listing but are holding off for some reason. If similar things have sold recently, maybe that set won't still be there if you wait a few minutes. This isn't necessarily simulated demand, but real demand, the same as if you were in a store and watching a particular item fly off the shelves. If the stock is depleted, you might not be able to get one, so knowing people are buying them might influence whether you feel secure in waiting for a bit or not. (For what it's worth, I do not work for nor have ever worked for StubHub, but I do work in the event ticketing industry so are familiar with them and how to use them).
- jordancolburn 9y ago
  I did think that might be the case. However, after deleting the IDs multiple times, the same sold tickets kept popping up, even minutes later (didn't time it exactly, but it was a while). So, why don't the sold tickets follow the sorting rules, they are inserted at the top. And why is it limited just to 2 of these unsorted previously sold items at the top and not just mark them in their place on the list if they have since sold. It seems pretty clear to me that it was designed to create a sense of urgency to the user. Another user on reddit also reported that they saw items that did not match their filters at all but were somehow inserted on their list. I am 100% open to the fact that poking around for 20 min or so might not lead me to a complete understanding of their system, but the intent of this code seemed pretty clear to me and I was able to continually able to bring up already sold tickets.
mdip 9y ago
This is an interesting play on a very old con game[0] that was common in used car dealerships and appliance shops. It works like this: You walk in, interested in buying. You talk with the salesman, settle on a car but are having cold feet/want to talk it over with your spouse, etc. Just as you're about to "walk away", an employee dressed down to appear as a customer, swoops in and makes a "cash offer" on the car you were interested in. Haggling ensues with the other guy protesting that "you weren't going to buy it, so I want it!" and you reluctantly put a down payment on it to keep it from being stolen out from under you (good old loss aversion at its finest). Alternatives to this include having an appliance/couch that is not ridiculously, but significantly marked down from its street price that the salesman is convincing you to buy. Your sales guy talks about what a great unit it is and its great price and you're ready to pay and take it home when he springs on you that the "Sold" sign fell off the unit and conveniently slid underneath it. Not to worry, of course, because there's just as good of a deal on the upgrade and even though it's a few hundred more, he'll knock the same hundred or so off of that price that the other was marked down, so it'll cost more, but it's a better unit[1]. Of course, the more expensive unit isn't -- really -- more expensive, or better than the one you were looking at, it's just marked at a price they can actually sell it for and make money. The other one wasn't even for sale in the first place, it's a prop. This is exceptionally common at middle-class furniture stores where the prices listed on everything are MSRP and the product never sells for that price with even the lowest-on-the-rung sales guys having a percentage on the price that they're allowed to discount without approval[2]. It gives the salespeople the lee-way to make you feel like you're getting a good deal and pull stunts like this to up their commission/the stores profits. When I worked retail (not commission), this was a common practice and that "more expensive item" often had a bonus attached to it for the salesperson (sometimes money, sometimes free stuff). It's interesting to see some of this playing out in the digital world, which basically eliminated a lot of these practices because you can instantly compare pricing/products among many sellers/stores, but there'll always be ways to play at the weaknesses of the buyer. [0] Which I thought was a clearly defined illegal practice, like "bait and switch" is known to be. But might not be (though as some have mentioned, the FTC might have an opinion on the subject). [1] ...and this is basically a form of bait and switch, but it's a lot easier to get away with and falls into a grayer area depending on the jurisdiction (usually a product that isn't available has to be advertised at a great price where upon arrival to purchase the product, an alternative, higher-profit item is peddled with the company having never had any intention of selling the cheap product). [2] Though a really common way of convincing a customer that they're getting a great deal is to bring that manager in to do the ceremony of granting a discount even though the sales guy could have done it himself. "Since it was my fault in trying to sell you something that was already sold, I'll explain that to the GM and see if we can give you a bigger discount for the cock-up."
wyqydsyq 9y ago
I'd argue they aren't deceiving users as those tickets were actually sold It would be deceiving if they showed an artificially falling stock counter or something to that effect, but in reality they are showing actual true data, it is only the way in which they show it (randomly inserted amongst search results) that can cause a sense of urgency, but there is still no deception here.
yeukhon 9y ago
I am only a user, but I find TickPick a solid alternate choice to all other ticket sales sites. The "no BS hidden fee" got me hooked up (plus the company always give out promo code). Other products aren't as transparent. But this sort of false urgency is misleading and should be illegal.
javabean22 9y ago
So one time I bought tickets to a concert from Stubhub. Then the headliner cancelled their appearance due to unforeseen circumstances and what not. But the concert was not cancelled as there were extra acts who would still perform. The headliner's website informed ticket holders that they could get a full refund "at the place of purchase" if they wanted. I asked Stubhub about that, their reply was (I'm paraphrasing): "Get f..cked. No refund, no nothing.. We don't care."
lbill 9y ago
I can't believe thay did such a deceptive manipulation in JS! We can acces this JS code, how stupid are they?!
mwexler 9y ago
Didn't Uber have a similar issue? You open the app, see multiple cars around you, so initiate a request, only to discover that the nearest car is actually not that near (and won't take your request)? Uber later said that the display of cars was just representative, that it wasn't revealing the real location or amount of cars near you on purpose to protect privacy of drivers... but that seemed a bit disingenuous.
scottrogers86 9y ago
Airbnb is also adopting this strategy.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Reference requested.

270 points by surye 9y ago

Providing a user with a list of recently or relevant tickets being sold is cool. But Manually adding them to a user list does not help the customer. Especially if they mark them as sold after being "available".

dyladan 9y ago

Creating a false sense of urgency is a cornerstone of modern marketing. The only difference between this and any other marketing campaign is that you just happened to catch them this time. This is just like when you go to an electronics store and they put the super expensive tv (almost) nobody buys right next to the still very expensive but comparably more modest model. You are more likely to buy that second tv even if costs more than you initially budgeted because your brain tells you that this is the cheaper model with _almost_ the same features as the flagship tv. For another example, many ecommerce sites will list the number available in stock if it is low, and sometimes will just say "few available" without specifying a number. This creates the same (sometimes false) sense of urgency.

jordancolburn 9y ago
Yeah, but to stick with the analogy, isn't this more like putting out empty boxes of TVs that have already been sold and having employees dressed as customers frantically buying them in front of regular customers. Thanks for reading btw, and thanks to whoever posted it here.
- dyladan 9y ago
  If an electronics retailer could do this at no additional cost, I have no doubt that they would.
- jmdocherty 9y ago
  ...or like the employee just shouting rather loudly across the showroom floor to a colleague: "Hey Joe we just sold another one of the <insert TV you happen to be looking at>. That's the 3rd one today - we better order some more before we run out of stock"
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Which apparently is done at some of the new hip restaurants. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/16/see-the-hipsters-lined-up-outside-that-new-restaurant-this-app-pays-them-to-stand-there/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/1...
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    Hmm, I wonder if Amazon was doing this with their new store at Santana Row in SJ: https://imgur.com/a/qSVYG https://imgur.com/a/qSVYG
- bigiain 9y ago
  "Here at stooge.io, we're disrupting the Shilling industry with our AI driven machine learning auto-shilling platform. Our PlantBot(tm) is a blockchain auditable marketing urgency generation tool."
c3534l 9y ago
Creating a false sense of urgency is different from creating a sense of urgency through falsehood.
polemic 9y ago
> This is just like when you go to an electronics store and they put the super expensive tv (almost) nobody buys right next to the still very expensive but comparably more modest model. You are more likely to buy that second tv even if costs more than you initially budgeted because your brain tells you that this is the cheaper model with _almost_ the same features as the flagship tv. I disagree that these are equivalent. Product differentiation exists in part to ensure you leave no money on the table -- if someone is cashed up and wants to pay 50% more for an extra 2 inches on the screen size, then you let them. Conversely, for the people who are super price conscious you have the very low margin end of line product hidden at the back. You alway maximise price by ensuring you have what they want at a price they're willing to pay. Generally this is fair and works well for consumers. But here we have prices that you _cannot_ pay. It's a dark pattern akin to bait and switch techniques that should (and might) be illegal.
alexasmyths 9y ago
"The only difference between this and any other marketing campaign is that you just happened to catch them this time." I'm not sure this is fair. By displaying false information, they are point-blank lying. That's misinformation. It should be illegal - it could be. Some other tricks such as 'creating very expensive items which they never expect to sell' as a cognitive 'price anchor' - well, not quite the same thing. I suggest there is a distinction between falsehoods and other forms of tricks. In the end it probably doesn't matter, but I wouldn't mind one bit if there was some consumer protections concerning this.
- interstitial 9y ago
  growth hacking, bro! </sarcasm>
- curun1r 9y ago
  > By displaying false information, they are point-blank lying. That's misinformation. As a devil's advocate, despite the presentation being scummy, there's definite consumer value to seeing tickets that sold. It helps correct an information imbalance between sellers and buyers. If all you saw were available tickets, you'd have no way of knowing whether they were being priced above market or not. By showing you two sales, provided they're actually real sales and picked arbitrarily (i.e. not picking the most expensive sales), they're giving you information about what other buyers are willing to pay for tickets. It's like seeing real estate comps...sure the houses have already been sold, but it helps you get a feel for whether the one you're looking at is being sold for a fair price.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    "there's definite consumer value to seeing tickets that sold. It helps correct an information imbalance between sellers and buyers." I don't think you're playing the devil's advocate. By all means - they and and as you indicate - maybe should show recent tickets sold. That's valuable information. But what they are showing is made up data. Not good. And definitely 'anti valuable'.
    - 9y ago
bluetwo 9y ago
This might be illegal according to FTC regulations. CFR 16 section 232.2 says: "Another commonly used form of bargain advertising is to offer goods at prices lower than those being charged by others for the same merchandise in the advertiser's trade area (the area in which he does business). This may be done either on a temporary or a permanent basis, but in either case the advertised higher price must be based upon fact, and not be fictitious or misleading."
gertef 9y ago
Nothing modern about it, it's one of the classic old selling techniques.
- jpeterman 9y ago
  "Act now while supplies last"
- smt88 9y ago
  What historical examples can you give where a seller made products look popular using fake customers purchasing unavailable products? It'd be like seeing a line for a new video game system, and everyone in the line was paid to be there and won't be buying it.
Roshie5u 9y ago
> sometimes will just say "few available" without specifying a number I don't think it is a good example. It is often a real technical limitation - they aren't able to keep consistent inventory count between branches, warehouses and internet sites. Other reason for "few available" is some form of dropshipping - they don't really have any items.
mandeepj 9y ago
This is analogous to when an unknown Joe creates a new course he specify in italics that only few seats left even though nobody have signed up yet. It is all to just create a rush.

klodolph 9y ago

The key deception with StubHub is that you're not actually buying tickets, you're actually giving away put options for free.

ghostly_s 9y ago
Huh?
- arjie 9y ago
  Once upon a time, a guy bought tickets for a basketball game on Stubhub. Some months after he bought the ticket, superstar Kobe Bryant announced that it was going to be his last game. Ticket prices shot up and the buyer was thrilled that he still had a ticket. However, the seller was equally unenthused by the idea of having sold his ticket at so much under its now-increased value. So he cancelled the sale. There was a big fuss, and Stubhub gave the one buyer a ticket to the game. If you give someone a put option for some quantity on something, they then get the power to sell that amount of that something to you at a specific price. Usually, you want to get money in exchange for giving someone that power. In the markets, this is called selling someone a put option. This chap's point is that you could agree to buy a ticket for $150 to see Kobe Bryant on Stubhub. This doesn't mean you get a ticket. This just means you gave someone on Stubhub the option to sell you a ticket at $150 because if the price rises to $1500, he's going to choose not to sell you that ticket by doing what the seller did in the previous case. Since you get no money for giving the seller the power, you're not selling the option, you're giving it away for free. That's probably the context to his comment. I neither agree nor disagree with it.
  - klodolph 9y ago
    This isn't just a one time thing, it's how StubHub operates. They will even "sell" tickets with no inventory and then not exercise the option if they can't fulfill it profitably.
- monksy 9y ago
  The other issue is that the venue for the ticket in most cases can reject you for any reason. (Typically venues don't do this.. but they will). Bought Chris Rock tickets a long time ago with the impression that they didn't have any special terms on them. Nothing unusual in the terms. The ticket was a standard Ticketmaster ticket. Showed up to the Chicago Theather this weekend and they were forcing people to put their phones in a locked bag. I didn't agree to those terms, so I refused. I got denied entry. (Btw Talked with ticketmaster support about this and they said this was an venue issue, the event didn't have any special terms attached)

agjacobson 9y ago

Many people lack a gut level understanding of this concept: a vendor who deep discounts or sells at cost can generate almost arbitrarily large revenues. For a while.

wolfgang42 9y ago
How is this relevant to the post at hand?

patmcguire 9y ago

"ugrency-message"

jordancolburn 9y ago
I actually didn't catch that typo they made the first time as I was so shocked at how easy it was to force it to keep reloading already sold tickets.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

Music Festivals use this same concept. By having pricing tiers for tickets you can have more "sold out" events, as they happen at each stage, driving interest. It works, and it is REAL unlike the javascript you see here, but it is still stupid. Can you imagine going to a Donut shop in the morning that had just sold 10% of its daily inventory and them putting up a SOLD OUT sign for Tier 1 Early Bird donuts? I hope one day marketers find a better solution for generating interest in their products.

jordancolburn 9y ago
Good point. Races (5k, marathon, etc) do that also to encourage people to sign up early. I think it's dumb, but at least the festival tier thing is honest. It's the dishonesty that kills me. The reason I think I was bugged enough to look into it is that I fell for the trick. I knew it's going to be a sold out game, so I assumed it was real traffic/user actions and almost let that influence my purchasing decisions.
- yermom 9y ago
  off-topic, but if you want to go, just go. unless scalping is different than almost anywhere i've been in the country(check local laws, Arlington, TX is dumb) you can usually get in for less than stubhub prices. it helps to find the people the scalpers are looking to buy from before they do we got into the OU/OSU game in Columbus for less than face i've only paid appreciably more than face once, and that was when OU played Florida in Miami for the national championship in 2009 i don't have hard numbers, but i've done this over fifty times in the last 10+ years, both coasts, bowl games, etc... mostly college football, but a couple NFL games as well. there have even been a few times where i was nervous and bought tickets beforehand because it was a big game, and then regretted it when i got there and found cheaper better seats than what i could get beforehand. i worry that sites like stubhub could stifle availability at games if more people try to just sell online instead of taking them to the stadium hasn't seemed to have been an issue yet though. i'm afraid the venues could make more tickets non-transferable and force you into stubhub so they could get a cut of the secondary market, it could actually make it more expensive to get tickets in the end for average events, low end tickets anyway

bau5 9y ago

If they'd used a minifier, most or all of this embarrassment could have been avoided.

jordancolburn 9y ago
I was pretty surprised, but maybe they were hoping for security by obscurity as it was buried a little in the sources. I don't think devs as a whole have really grasped a lot of the trade-offs/repercussions of moving so much logic to the client side.
zeveb 9y ago
WebAssembly will help hide this!
- BHSPitMonkey 9y ago
  Wouldn't decompiled/disassembled wasm code be about as readable as unminified JavaScript?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Not if there was a proper optimization pass while compiling.

mcescalante 9y ago

I have gone to Stubhub a few times now to try to replicate this, and searched for tickets for popular NFL and MLB teams, and I can't get this "Sold" thing to work the way this posts shows it - actually it doesn't happen at all for me. Has anyone else been able to replicate the "sold after load" behavior? Is it only on specific events?

jordancolburn 9y ago
Maybe, they had some other junk about AB test flags and I didn't dig far enough to see how that was set or if it was random from the server. My wild guess is that they turn it on for popular events close to the time of the event, so there is less chance of users noticing.
- mcescalante 9y ago
  Yeah, that's likely the case. I do not see the urgency message in my session data for this NFL game (suggesting it won't do it's sold out thing for this event) but I do see something in my local storage called "cache:local:app:urgencyMessageData"

mbesto 9y ago

But growth hacking right? In all seriousness, I love how techniques like this are "ok" when the company is considered a "startup", but when it suddenly becomes "evil megacorp", it's all of the sudden considered deception.

tyrust 9y ago
I'd be surprised if anyone would think that this is ok for a company of any size.
- StuieK 9y ago
  Go look at the "discounts" on Wish vs the Amazon prices. Big company now, 100% lying directly to the consumer.
  - tyrust 9y ago
    I'm not familiar with Wish and it appears that I need an account to look at their site. More relevant to my comment, I am not familiar with public sentiment of Wish.
- anon1385 9y ago
  You're on a YC website. They are open about looking for founders who do these kinds of things. Keep in mind that YC invested in a startup that was running a service that added malware to software installers and when people called them out on it Paul Graham defended it and said they were doing nothing wrong because there was a tiny "pwn my machine" checkbox in the installer, and if people didn't uncheck that then clearly they wanted a load of malware installed. I've been writing comments about this kind of thing on HN for years. This one was 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051099
astura 9y ago
StubHub is owned by eBay.
- 9y ago

artursapek 9y ago

Some poor programmer had to grit his teeth and implement this while pressured by his "agile" "product" "manager" to "finish the sprint".

root_axis 9y ago
Probably not that poor after having received his check for doing so.
- artursapek 9y ago
  I meant poor in more of a higher fulfillment sense

krrrh 9y ago

Booking.com are the all-time kings of this approach. The search results page is littered with highlighted messages like. “4 people are looking at this room now” “2 people just booked at this hotel” “Too bad you already missed out on this hot deal” “X% of the neighbourhood/city/region you’re looking at is already booked!” ... It’s quite likely real information, but the timeframes and language are vague enough to make you feel like you’ve got about 5 minutes to lock a room down. They do such a good job at instilling anxiety that you feel like you achieved something important when you finally book.

koolba 9y ago
The "... just booked this hotel!" is the funniest because they make it seem like they booked it for the dates you're searching. In reality it's somebody booked the hotel, at some point in the past X (minutes? hours? days?), for some dates in the future that more than likely have nothing to do with when you plan on being there.
JohnTHaller 9y ago
As soon as I bring up any website using this plugin and its constant stupid popups ("Amy in Georgia just bought these socks!"), I just click the back button.
wtvanhest 9y ago
This literally happened to me yesterday. I knew the tricks, it didn't matter. It pressured me so hard and made the shopping experience so terrible.
klistwan 9y ago
Someone recently wrote about their dark patterns, and how sometimes it's actually false information: https://medium.com/@ilyadoroshin/bad-ux-how-booking-com-deceives-clients-5dc9e9485f32 https://medium.com/@ilyadoroshin/bad-ux-how-booking-com-dece...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Roshie5u 9y ago

joeax 9y ago

Just to be clear, it isn't that it's taking the top few listings and randomly marking as sold, but that the code is going out and retrieving what appear to be already sold listings (as stored in the urgencyMessageListings variable), and just injecting the top 2 from that array randomly in positions 1-5 in the main list (through a Array.splice() call). While somewhat deceiving, it's not as bad as marking tickets that haven't sold as sold. Imagine if you were trying to sell your tix at the last minute, well that would be bad. (I've sold tix at the last minute before and that would scare me.)

preinheimer 9y ago
To me the problem here is the transition: they appear available then are marked as sold. Had they appeared sold from the start, that would have been fine. But by transitioning them they've stated a timeline for their sale which is incorrect.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mcescalante 9y ago

This reminds me of this tweet about Verzion's "agents waiting" implementation on their website fetching the real count one time and then randomly changing via Math.random(): https://twitter.com/mixonic/status/736575632226852865?lang=en https://twitter.com/mixonic/status/736575632226852865?lang=e...

hartator 9y ago

I haven't heard of this website before. Don't forget that bad publicity is still publicity.

icelancer 9y ago
>>I haven't heard of this website before. StubHub is widely, widely known to anyone who attends music events or sporting events. It's the largest exchange by a lot. They don't need bad publicity to spread the word.
hatcherdogg 9y ago
Sometimes. Unless bad publicity causes regular users to stop contributing revenue.

hatcherdogg 9y ago

SH: Deceive until we get caught, then we will 'listen' to our customers and adapt. Blegh.

chasb 9y ago

I wonder if the FTC would be interested in this. Section 5 of the FTC Act lets the agency regulate deceptive marketing practices. The FTC's test for deception has three requirements: 1. There must be a representation, omission, or practice that misleads or is likely to mislead the consumer. 2. The act or practice must be considered from the perspective of the reasonable consumer. 3. The representation, omission, or practice must be material. The post suggests StubHub is making very specific misrepresentations about specific ticket rights; the tactic here would deceive a reasonable consumer; and the misrepresentation is made to induce the sale.

dawnerd 9y ago
I think they key is that they're pulling ticket that are actually sold out: > When you load a page they get a list of tickets that have already sold I'm sure they could argue that since they are real tickets are actually sold out then they're not actually being deceptive. I really hate these dark patterns - been getting worse and worse on travel sites.
- chasb 9y ago
  Possibly, but here StubHub would have to explain why they displayed it as unsold with a delay, and why the FTC should not consider that deceptive. If the ticket was already sold, why the delay? A reasonable consumer think that specific ticket had just been sold at that moment, which sounds like a material misrepresentation.
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    Totally agree with you. Unfortunately, I don't have faith the FTC would side with consumers on this. Now, if Stubhub advertised the ticket as being available on a prior page knowing it was sold out...
    - diggernet 9y ago
      It was displayed as being available for a few seconds before it changed to sold...

pfedigan 9y ago

Where has ethics gone to in the corporate world? I also came across them displaying say only 4 tickets for what it seems like a sold out event but in reality it was never sold out and the prices were cheaper on the day of the actual event. I recall seeing something along the lines of the event being almost sold out. Maybe Stubhub only had 4 tickets during that time so I could be wrong. It is a sale from ticket holder to ticket holder.

mst 9y ago
> Where has ethics gone to in the corporate world? I suspect either "outcompeted" or "only required until you've crushed all of the competition who might use it to outcompete you". Neither is a particularly cheering thought.

swrobel 9y ago

They just disabled it, so I guess that’s a win...? https://twitter.com/stubhub/status/907384565085257729 https://twitter.com/stubhub/status/907384565085257729

jordancolburn 9y ago

Company responded and said they removed the "feature". They confirmed to me that it was part of an AB test (which I had seen in the code), but did not confirm or deny my suspicion that the AB was used to apply it only to events where it was less likely to be discovered. I was half-jokingly going to ask for tickets to the game, lol. But after they requested I post an update and clarify their response to removing the feature, it just felt wrong. I mean, I'm glad they removed it, but that's a pretty big thing to act like it should all just be OK and it's a "feature" users didn't like. And I think their urgency in removing it only shows how bad it really was, not how concerned they are for users. https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/907384565085257729 https://twitter.com/StubHub/status/907384565085257729

kbenson 9y ago
> And I think their urgency in removing it only shows how bad it really was, not how concerned they are for users. Well, that only really shows how bad it might be or was being perceived and whatever backlash it might generate. It's entirely possible to feel like you have to backpedal on something that was meant entirely for the good of others because it's perceived as self serving (not that this situation maps to that, I'm making a general point).

kbenson 9y ago

> if (!globals.hideUrgencyMessage && SH.mbox.justSoldEvent && urgencyMessageListings && urgencyMessageListings.length) { Have you considered that SH.mbox.justSoldEvent might be noting that there were recent sales, and while they weren't just sold as the page was loaded, the system may actually indicate that sales are happening and to be aware that the listings may not persist in the current state for long? As of right now, SH.mbox.justSoldEvent is undefined for me, but they may have specifically disabled the system (or only use it if there are sales but not too many). Looking at the seller's interface on SH for this, the last three transactions happened within 10 minutes of when I loaded the sales data, and each were for a pair. Looking at the sales data I can see that the two you had shown to you were consecutive transactions at 2017-09-11T17:45:40.000Z and 2017-09-11T17:38:55.000Z, which I'm willing to bet were the two most recent sales when you loaded the page. If that's what's going on, it's not only for SH's benefit. This also signals to buyers what's selling right now, and what migh be sold soon in case you are eyeing a particular listing but are holding off for some reason. If similar things have sold recently, maybe that set won't still be there if you wait a few minutes. This isn't necessarily simulated demand, but real demand, the same as if you were in a store and watching a particular item fly off the shelves. If the stock is depleted, you might not be able to get one, so knowing people are buying them might influence whether you feel secure in waiting for a bit or not. (For what it's worth, I do not work for nor have ever worked for StubHub, but I do work in the event ticketing industry so are familiar with them and how to use them).

jordancolburn 9y ago
I did think that might be the case. However, after deleting the IDs multiple times, the same sold tickets kept popping up, even minutes later (didn't time it exactly, but it was a while). So, why don't the sold tickets follow the sorting rules, they are inserted at the top. And why is it limited just to 2 of these unsorted previously sold items at the top and not just mark them in their place on the list if they have since sold. It seems pretty clear to me that it was designed to create a sense of urgency to the user. Another user on reddit also reported that they saw items that did not match their filters at all but were somehow inserted on their list. I am 100% open to the fact that poking around for 20 min or so might not lead me to a complete understanding of their system, but the intent of this code seemed pretty clear to me and I was able to continually able to bring up already sold tickets.

mdip 9y ago

This is an interesting play on a very old con game[0] that was common in used car dealerships and appliance shops. It works like this: You walk in, interested in buying. You talk with the salesman, settle on a car but are having cold feet/want to talk it over with your spouse, etc. Just as you're about to "walk away", an employee dressed down to appear as a customer, swoops in and makes a "cash offer" on the car you were interested in. Haggling ensues with the other guy protesting that "you weren't going to buy it, so I want it!" and you reluctantly put a down payment on it to keep it from being stolen out from under you (good old loss aversion at its finest). Alternatives to this include having an appliance/couch that is not ridiculously, but significantly marked down from its street price that the salesman is convincing you to buy. Your sales guy talks about what a great unit it is and its great price and you're ready to pay and take it home when he springs on you that the "Sold" sign fell off the unit and conveniently slid underneath it. Not to worry, of course, because there's just as good of a deal on the upgrade and even though it's a few hundred more, he'll knock the same hundred or so off of that price that the other was marked down, so it'll cost more, but it's a better unit[1]. Of course, the more expensive unit isn't -- really -- more expensive, or better than the one you were looking at, it's just marked at a price they can actually sell it for and make money. The other one wasn't even for sale in the first place, it's a prop. This is exceptionally common at middle-class furniture stores where the prices listed on everything are MSRP and the product never sells for that price with even the lowest-on-the-rung sales guys having a percentage on the price that they're allowed to discount without approval[2]. It gives the salespeople the lee-way to make you feel like you're getting a good deal and pull stunts like this to up their commission/the stores profits. When I worked retail (not commission), this was a common practice and that "more expensive item" often had a bonus attached to it for the salesperson (sometimes money, sometimes free stuff). It's interesting to see some of this playing out in the digital world, which basically eliminated a lot of these practices because you can instantly compare pricing/products among many sellers/stores, but there'll always be ways to play at the weaknesses of the buyer. [0] Which I thought was a clearly defined illegal practice, like "bait and switch" is known to be. But might not be (though as some have mentioned, the FTC might have an opinion on the subject). [1] ...and this is basically a form of bait and switch, but it's a lot easier to get away with and falls into a grayer area depending on the jurisdiction (usually a product that isn't available has to be advertised at a great price where upon arrival to purchase the product, an alternative, higher-profit item is peddled with the company having never had any intention of selling the cheap product). [2] Though a really common way of convincing a customer that they're getting a great deal is to bring that manager in to do the ceremony of granting a discount even though the sales guy could have done it himself. "Since it was my fault in trying to sell you something that was already sold, I'll explain that to the GM and see if we can give you a bigger discount for the cock-up."

wyqydsyq 9y ago

I'd argue they aren't deceiving users as those tickets were actually sold It would be deceiving if they showed an artificially falling stock counter or something to that effect, but in reality they are showing actual true data, it is only the way in which they show it (randomly inserted amongst search results) that can cause a sense of urgency, but there is still no deception here.

yeukhon 9y ago

I am only a user, but I find TickPick a solid alternate choice to all other ticket sales sites. The "no BS hidden fee" got me hooked up (plus the company always give out promo code). Other products aren't as transparent. But this sort of false urgency is misleading and should be illegal.

javabean22 9y ago

So one time I bought tickets to a concert from Stubhub. Then the headliner cancelled their appearance due to unforeseen circumstances and what not. But the concert was not cancelled as there were extra acts who would still perform. The headliner's website informed ticket holders that they could get a full refund "at the place of purchase" if they wanted. I asked Stubhub about that, their reply was (I'm paraphrasing): "Get f..cked. No refund, no nothing.. We don't care."

lbill 9y ago

I can't believe thay did such a deceptive manipulation in JS! We can acces this JS code, how stupid are they?!

mwexler 9y ago

Didn't Uber have a similar issue? You open the app, see multiple cars around you, so initiate a request, only to discover that the nearest car is actually not that near (and won't take your request)? Uber later said that the display of cars was just representative, that it wasn't revealing the real location or amount of cars near you on purpose to protect privacy of drivers... but that seemed a bit disingenuous.

scottrogers86 9y ago

Airbnb is also adopting this strategy.

dredmorbius 9y ago
Reference requested.