
The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan - matttah
http://www.theleadsports.com/the-surreal-story-of-stubhub-screwing-over-a-kobe-fan/
======
ascagnel_
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
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
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
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
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
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
The 49ers did that this season (72 hours)... one of many ways they pissed off
the season ticket base.

------
whack
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
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.

~~~
curun1r
The buyer made the mistake of thinking he was dealing with StubHub rather than
the seller. If he had been smart, he would have asked asked StubHub for the
seller's details with the comment that he would be filing suit against either
StubHub or the seller.

StubHub is a marketplace and sellers frequently sell tickets they don't own.
This works out because tickets frequently drop in price shortly before the
game and, for the times that they don't, sellers usually eat the loss. But
this seller decided not to deliver and, for that, they should be sued. The
equivalent in the stock market would be to short a stock and then not pay up
when the stock quadrupled. Given that the value of the loss suffered by the
buyer is roughly $5k ($6k tickets less ~$k credit at StubHub), it's a good
candidate for small claims court.

~~~
mbcrower
Based on the customer service emails it looks like StubHub knew full well what
was going on and aided the seller in pulling out of the agreement.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
Of course they knew what was going on. A seller "made a mistake" in listing
the tickets, thus the tickets didn't actually exist in StubHub's eyes and they
were forced to cancel the transaction.

It is impossible to know if the seller is telling the truth in this situation
or not. Everybody makes mistakes, this seller just claims to have made a more
costly one than usual.

StubHub is a marketplace, they can't investigate every time somebody claims to
have made a mistake in listing their tickets.

IF the seller re-listed the exact same seats for a higher price once the
original order was cancelled, I could see how StubHub could easily call out
the fraudster and ban them from using their site... but even then the seller
could just sign up using another credit card and a friend's address.

~~~
Dylan16807
>It is impossible to know if the seller is telling the truth in this situation
or not. Everybody makes mistakes

When the reason given for the 'mistake' is obviously false, it's not
impossible.

>they can't investigate every time somebody claims to have made a mistake in
listing their tickets

They certainly can investigate every case of purchases in the $900+ range. You
know, as part of their multiple hundreds of dollars in fees.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
>When the reason given for the 'mistake' is obviously false, it's not
impossible.

The problem is that you could not concretely determine that to be the case.
Thousands if not millions of ticket sales are canceled for a variety of
reasons on StubHub every single day.

They would be going broke trying to investigate all of them for fraud, not to
mention open themselves up to potential lawsuits by the alleged perpetrators
they wrongly defamed if they made a mistake.

~~~
Dylan16807
The article says that stubhub charges a 20% fee when the seller cancels. So
again, they absolutely are able to investigate every such situation while
making a profit. Every ticket? No. Cases where they're making over a hundred
dollars? Yes.

------
th0br0
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.

~~~
QuotedForTruth
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
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.

------
kentt
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-ti...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
columbia/super-bowl-tickets-stubhub-ebay-sellers-leave-diehard-b-c-seahawks-
fan-ticketless-1.2938040)

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.

------
bruceb
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...](http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/super-bowl-dream-
becomes-nightmare-for-seahawks-fans-after-shortage-of-tickets/)

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
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.

------
kin
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
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
[https://twitter.com/Budweiser/status/684878816959856640](https://twitter.com/Budweiser/status/684878816959856640)

------
paulgb
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
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
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
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
Why laws? How about just contracts binding those in the market?

~~~
jerf
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-ho...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-
encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-how-much-30031.html)

~~~
mikeash
Would a small claims court in this case do anything besides ensure the buyer
got a refund, which they already got anyway?

~~~
jerf
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.)

------
busterarm
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
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
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.

------
forrestthewoods
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
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.

------
ssharp
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.

------
strommen
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)

~~~
golergka
Did the promise not to cancel orders that they received the payment for in the
future?

~~~
strommen
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.

~~~
michaelt
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.

------
brk
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
> _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
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
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.

~~~
talmand
I wouldn't say the business tactics that businesses like Ticketmaster use to
get so entrenched in their markets is necessarily corruption. But, once
entrenched they often start conducting corrupt, or at least unethical,
practices.

------
donretag
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
How can they do this for events that have specific seats. Its not a general
admission event. They sold this guy certain seats.

~~~
donretag
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.

------
DannyBee
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.

------
delecti
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
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.

------
DrScump
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.

------
dbot
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
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.

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

------
awakeasleep
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
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.

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

~~~
eli
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
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.

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

------
gepgaewpk
The real winner here is Tickets For Less.

------
ijustwanttovote
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
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.

