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Ask HN: Stubhub buying their own tickets under fake names?
265 points by Throwawayh89 on July 12, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 84 comments
I just sold three tickets on Stubhub for a concert I won't be able to make this weekend.

When I went to transfer them on Ticketmaster I noticed that the domain the email address was at for all of them appeared to be the names of businesses, but none of them had websites or any presence in google when I searched for them.

Being the curious person I am, I then went and looked up the WHOIS for the domain. They all were registered in the last six months, supposedly by Stubhub itself (nobody actually verifies the accuracy of WHOIS data though, its all an honor system)

It seems to me like there is probably a hustle going on, where someone is buying tickets under fake names and flipping them. Is this something Stubhub is known to do (SeatGeek pretty openly does it with their return program). Or is lying on the whois part of a larger scheme someone runs?

P.S.

If anyone is curious, the email domains were crimsonhillpartners.com , oneclassic.org , and ambercovecapital.com




I was curious the last time I sold tickets so actually called them asked about this. The emails are aliases to verify the tickets are valid, then they are forwarded to the buyer.

Usually the format is <email prefix of buyer>@<stubhub controlled domain> and the tickets are forwarded pretty quickly. This way stubhub can actually validate you sent over a PDF + the contents of those PDFs or images if the buyer disputes delivery.


but why would they use shady looking domain names for this?


I’d guess so that ticketmaster etc. can’t identify which tickets are being sold via StubHub. If the domains were identifiable, ticketmaster could block the transfers.


But if StubHub (MarkMonitor Inc.) is visible in WHOIS, then ticketmaster could do a `whois emeraldsummitadvisors.com` and block still block it?


Cat and mouse game with Ticketmaster team..... next up anonymous registrations.


Yeah. That's a slightly more expensive endeavour. The question is is they can scale enough the number of domains and connect to send emails. New domains + not known can have not so good sending reputation. If they use low number of domains, Ticketmaster could start blocking new domains with more than average number of ticket purchases.


To most people it isn't shady looking? It gives the feeling that you're emailing a person, which might be what they're going for.


Totally just guessing: Maybe to reduce inbound spam that's forwarded to the buyers? If it was one central email address, spammers could just send a ton of images/PDFs to all known prefixes of that central domain, but needing to guess the prefix + right domain adds a layer of indirection? They may not do much validation on the forwarded tickets, just store it for disputes


Wouldn't it be much cheaper and effective to add a random secret to the bit before the at rather than after?


Shady looking domain names are usually cheap and available?

That's my best guess at least.


That makes no sense, why wouldnt it just be @stubhub.com or @stubhubtickets.com


This is really interesting, because I had the same experience happen to me yesterday (the domain was emeraldsummitadvisors.com).

I didn't find much discussion about it, but one theory I saw was that for high-value tickets Stubhub will act as an intermediary to verify the tickets or prevent the buyer and seller from knowing who the other person is (because the original buyer info is typically on a ticket or revealed during the transfer, and the new buyer info is given to the seller).

I assume this is to cut down on scams and other issues related to claims of not receiving tickets.


> I assume this is to cut down on scams and other issues related to claims of not receiving tickets.

If that's the case, why are they using cutouts for it? I'd think that if their purpose was legitimate, they wouldn't feel the need to disguise their identity.


I'd think it would be to prevent being "seen" by Ticketmaster/AXS/whoever and then banned or whatever for scalping activity is my thought. I think there is probably a very good reason to hide their identity or at least obscure it.

A similar thing happened when Uber started in New York City. You needed a livery license to drive there, so they created dozens of livery companies (all with German names) that they registered the drivers to, as a way I think, to make it harder for the city to try to shut them down (the city didn't shut them down but I think that was part of their risk calculus). Lyft originally didn't register liveries for its drivers and was banned from New York until it spun that up and it delayed their entry into the market by a few weeks.


Right. Just use verifiedbuyer@stubhub.com or something like that. There is obviously some deception going on here, whether it's StubHub or someone else.


It could be about optics. They might prefer people direct their anger at a random non-existent stranger for paying above face value than have them direct their anger at Stubhub.

That said, shifting blame for high prices isn't a new problem, so it's surprising the domains were all registered in the last 6 months.

Maybe it's a bigger project around market making and price optimization. I priced mine around 70% of the price of similar available tickets (since mine hadn't sold in the 3 weeks I had them listed) and they sold later that day.


What a dumb way to try to hide. And, inevitably, someone discovered some odd things. Now we can be mad about two things: the Crime and the Coverup.


> they wouldn't feel the need to disguise their identity

Wouldn't that tip off the fake seller if they saw the email?

Such things are such a game of whack a mole that I would approach it as invisibly as possible if I were trying to sniff out fake sellers on my site. Even if just to hope to keep them unaware.


Isn't there something that you buy the tickets on LiveNation and then via the website sell them on StubHub. Like they know that the tickets are real...


That seems like five lines of code to me...


My theory is it’s a janky workaround for a system that requires “an account” to buy tickets and so this was the solution they came up with internally to support third-party integrations and possibly affiliate programs. The amount of weird-ass Rube Goldberg systems in the real world is staggering, I’ve worked on systems where this sort of bananas solution could end up being used.


This is the best theory so far, Having using the website, I would bet good money the entire StubHub backend is a dumpster fire


It's probably this.


Those domains are all registered through MarkMonitor (which stubhub.com also uses) which has a 5 figure annual minimum spend so it is almost certainly StubHub. I'm not sure why they would try to hide that they are buying tickets though.


Many artists, venues, and ticketing companies prohibit transferring to resale sites but allow "fan to fan" transfers. You transfer the ticket to Stubhub via a reasonable but generic sounding email, then they transfer it to the final buyer later.

The domains help Stubhub obscure that they are involved


The particular concert this was for (Illenium at Merriweather Pavilion on 7/15) had resale disabled on Ticketmaster itself per an agreement with the artist.


Scalping their own product for higher profit will draw the ire of Congress.


How is anything done by Ticketmaster and Stubhub not legitimized scalping at its worst and not already disbanded by congress? It's so rampant Ticketmaster doesn't even pretend anymore and just charges "market adjusted" prices to scalp directly themselves now to cut out most of the middle-man scalpers.


Because the artists are all in favour of it. Ticketmaster et al are in the business of reputation laundering. If the artists sold tickets directly at market clearing prices then fans would be livid at the level of greed on display.

By using Ticketmaster as an intermediary, artists are able to put artificial below-market prices on the tickets but then sell them at inflated prices, while deflecting fans' anger to the middle man. Ticketmaster, in turn, pays the artists a kickback and everybody wins (except the fans).


If they are gambling that the ticket will be worth more in the future (if it was worth more today, it would have been bought by a real customer), they could make millions, or lose everything like Zillow. Guessing what a volatile item will be worth in a month isn't all fun and games


They kinda have control of the supply of goods too though - running the main resale marketplace.

When there is an excess of tickets, they can make sure that their own stock sells before random fans tickets ('I'm sorry, nobody bought the ticket you listed for sale, and now the event is over').


I hope this blows up if that's what they're doing. A Russian nesting doll of scalping?


https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/


MarkMonitor would be pretty on-the-nose for something that is effectively a scam.


And if they did really want to hide it, why not do a better job?

If you don't want to lie on the Whois, use a shell company or something.


its a double edged sword. the more deliberate actions you take, the easier it is for a lawyer to show that it was willful deception.


Huh? So doing a crappy obvious job at deception means lawyers will go easier on you?

If I sell lifted PS5s in a dark alley with a cheesy Ronald Reagan mask on, does the law say "hey, he didn't try that hard to deceive anyone."


> doing a crappy obvious job at deception means lawyers will go easier on you?

The judge may go easier on you if there was no deception. The lawyer is just showing the judge whatever they can. Poster you replied to got it right.


Well it's sure harder to plead for leniency if you took active measures to conceal your illegal activity.


it's not really deception to register and use whatever domains you'd like.


Stubhub gets a cut every time the tickets change hands. It's in their interest to buy the tickets off people and then resell them themselves, since they will get two cuts in that case. Couple that with the fact that they're in a unique position to measure demand and model future pricing, they can effectively double dip with little risk.

Further, the shell companies could be something Stubhub is doing to derisk the arbitrage portion of the transaction to isolate losses associated with inability to sell the tickets for a profit to the shell company rather than to Stubhub.

Stubhub was supposed to IPO in 2022, but it doesn't look like they did. This kind of 'gaming the numbers to pump valuation' doesn't seem implausible for a company that is trying to IPO.


That double dipping doesnt make sense unless they are doing something more complex - like limit supply or time swings in the market.

Let's say there cut is 2%.

If I sell a ticket for $50 list price to StubHub and then they sell it for $50 list price then they got 1 dollar from me and one dollar from the eventual buyer. That's $2 total.

If I sell a ticket to someone else on Stubhub for $50 then they also get $1 from me and $1 from the seller. The "double dipping" doesnt work out even before you factor in the overhead.

This is not to say they aren't manipulating market. Maybe they think they can make more money because humans are risk adverse and sell tickets for less than they should to optimize EV, or somethikng.


I considered that, but consider that shell companies are buying and reselling the tickets - then the main Stubhub entity collects all of the fees from each transaction. Now they get to show higher revenue for the Stubhub entity. Stubhub is trying to IPO and this feels like a way to boost numbers in order to boost valuation.


The SEC would catch you for that. There are all kinds of tricks like that for inflating revenue they have outlawed.

Thats why for example, if you work for Walmart you aren't allowed to buy walmart food for the team party and expense it. Expensing it is fine, but inflating the revenue figures by buying your own product is not.


It could make sense if someone lists the tickets for less than their market value - perhaps they're trying to be nice and are reselling at face value, or just need the tickets to sell quickly.

In this case, StubHub could buy them and re-sell them to arbitrage the seller's price and the true market value.


In your first case, there were two sales at $50, meaning a $2 cut for the company.

In your second case, there was one sale at $50, meaning a $1 cut for the company.


1 dollar from buyer and 1 dollar from seller. It's 2 dollars regardless.


But consider that there is Stubhub and there is the shell company intermediary. Now Stubhub recognizes $1 from the buyer and $1 from the seller for the first transaction, and again $1 from the buyer and $1 from the seller for the second transaction.

This smells like an accounting trick to boost published revenue numbers, and seems plausible given that Stubhub announced they were on IPO track last year.


Yeah the other commenter got it, but just to be explicit:

Case A:

Sale 1. Ticket holder sells to [shell company]: +$1 for Stubhub

Sale 2. [shell company] sells to ticket purchaser: +$1 for Stubhub

Case B:

Sale 1. Ticket holder sells to ticket purchaser: +$1 for Stubhub

It doesn't matter who the buyer or seller is, Stubhub says "This is a ticket sale so I will take a cut". Case A makes twice as much money for the parent company, and that's what's under suspicion in this thread, although there are other realistic reasons for the domain name behaviour seen by OP. And Case A makes assumptions about ticket pricing, e.g. if the shell company bought too many tickets and couldn't re-sell them all then whoops


I am wondering what is the business case for StubHub to do this ?

Flipping for a profit ? Making StubHub look successful and be more active than it really is ?


They could be engaging in a form of market making, where they buy tickets that are near certain to be sold so that sellers feel good about listing on their site. I don't know about their customers' behavior, but I imagine many buyers buy at the last moment, and sellers feel anxious wondering if they will be able to sell, making them look for other platforms.


This. Plus different sellers have different motivations and different pricing strategies. Stubhub based on their volume has a sense of where the market is, and if they see a seller underpricing versus what Stubhub thinks the ticket will sell for, they may swoop in and try to capture some of the upside.

There's no such thing as a ticker feed for the resale markets -- the market is characterized by "imperfect information". Artists and venues making it hard to buy and sell basically widens the spread for the secondaries to play with.


I never thought about it, but I suppose a concert ticket is similar to a futures contract. I'm sure some fintech whiz-kids figured that out years ago and have been at work figuring out how to make money on yet another market.


In theory someone like stub hub could operate as a super scalper by buying all tickets and creating scarcity. Alternately, they are simply trying to create liquidity in the ticket market by buying tickets today to resell tomorrow.


Because StubHub et al have done so much to drive up ticket prices, some bands/venues/etc. are pushing back by blocking ticket brokers and only allowing "fan-to-fan" ticket sales. StubHub may be inserting itself as a middleman/escrow agent to allow brokers to sell without necessarily showing up as ticket brokers.


You buy up all available inventory and raise the prices, same thing that real estate companies were doing during the pandemic. Every home in my neighborhood that went up for sale from 2020 to late 2022 was snatched up in less than a week by a corporation.


That's awful, but also rather high-risk. Imagine if they did that and then manipulated the regulatory environment and/or the construction industry to limit new supply.... Now THAT would be evil.


Sure, it's a footgun waiting to go off. Look at what happened to Zillow, which went from a real estate app to a homebuyer.


The most forgiving explanation is they are acting as a middle man, to avoid telling sellers who the customers really are.

But why would StubHub avoid admitting they are doing that? SeatGeek just has you transfer the tickets to an email at their own domain (at least when you use the free returns feature).

Only thing I can think is they want to make it hard for the ticket seller to block them, but again SeatGeek doesn't seem concerned.


Stubhub collects a fee every time a ticket changes hands. It's in their interest to buy the tickets off people and then resell them themselves, since they will collect two fees in that case. Couple that with the fact that they're in a unique position to measure demand and model future pricing, they can effectively double dip with little risk.

Further, the shell companies could be something Stubhub is doing to derisk the arbitrage portion of the transaction to isolate losses associated with inability to sell the tickets for a profit to the shell company rather than to Stubhub.


probably sourcing replacement for bad tickets.

venues may cancel tickets or require photo ID if they suspect they were bought for resale.


Why isn't "you're not allowed to resell tickets except through us" illegal for being anticompetitive?


I've bought my fair share of tickets off of StubHub but I've only sold there once and I don't remember the transfer process because it was 4 years ago.

My initial take would be that they would do this either:

a) to act as an intermediary (themselves) that you transfer to and then they transfer to the buyer's Ticketmaster account, so that you don't get someone's PII

b) they buy a few near face value to have when inevitably, fake tickets are sold and they have to replace them ASAP (which has happened to me before -- as in, I was at the venue and couldn't scan one of my tickets and then went in and called StubHub and they called me back and got a backup ticket for my friend)

But my gut tells me it is probably the first? This would also cut down on customers telling them they didn't get a ticket transfer (if they really did) and also ensuring that sellers actually transfer tickets. An easier method of all of this would be to have a way to work directly with Ticketmaster or AXS or whoever to act as an escrow agent for ticket sales, but considering AXS and Ticketmaster have their own resale services, I'm sure they make that as difficult as possible.

I have to think that the biggest ongoing costs to an operation like StubHub or Seatgeek or Vivid or any of the other marketplaces are fraud and customer service related to lost ticket transfers. So anything you could do to mitigate both of those (which acting as an intermediary would help with both) would be worth it.

Siderant: The thing that kills me about the resale/scalper nonsense is that in response, some venues are now doing anything they can to limit resales at all -- requiring you to pick up tickets from will call and show ID and credit card used to pay. So then you have to hope that whoever sold their extras on Craigslist or FB actually shows up at the venue so you can get your GA seat you paid way too much for, or else you're SOL. And like, look, I get it, you want to cut down on scalping. But things come up and people can't always attend shows. Or some of us will literally pay stupid prices to see someone live -- but when the venues put in onerous terms and check ID at the pickup window, that's just stupid.


For most of those (valid) concerns, having stubhub openly act as the intermediary would probably be better as far as I can tell.

If I’m selling my ticket on stubhub and I get a request to transfer the ticket to some stubhub.com email address, I feel more secure that it’s legit than a scammer.


color-geographicfeature-orgdesignation is their name generator, at least.


https://namegrep.com/#%28%3Acolors%3A%7Ccrimson%7Camber%7Cem...

None of the the domains listed in this thread appear to be taken (the site uses godaddy to verify, and is updated every 24h), but there are others in this scheme that may be related.


How'd you determine that?


The poster and some comments give examples of the domains: crimsonhillpartners, ambercovecapital, emeraldsummitadvisors.


Other examples of Stubhub e-mails include "fieldmilestone" and "rolodexinfo". I believe that Stubhub is using old domains, probably from some list that their registrar is providing them. Sometimes, there are blocks of patterns, such as the color/etc. one - but they're probably doing this to avoid getting spam-filtered by people's mail clients, not to try to hide from Ticketmaster or anything else, and I doubt the naming is something they are defining.


All the ones I've seen are quite recent, 2023 creation dates. Your "fieldmilestone" is one such.

Obviously they're not literally all the color+feature+company pattern but I don't think they're just reusing old "real" domains either.

As for not getting spam filtered, using a big pile of new domains with no web presence probably has the reverse effect so I don't think that's the intention here. Also I think as it's described, these emails aren't really sending messages to people, they're there to receive emails from Ticketmaster or similar entities when you go to transfer though them.


This ^^


Sounds like ticket price arbitrage. Pick up undervalued tickets, resell them at a higher than listed price. Stubhub has all the correct stuff to do this, high speed api access, data about historical ticket prices. They could even list their estimated price first and find the buyer before purchasing at the lower price. If that doesn’t happen quickly then list the original price.

It’s basically an unregulated ticket stock market.


This, I wouldnt be suprised if Stubhub had already resold the tickets at the same time they purchased from the original buyer.


In the past for some time, Stubhub used a single Gmail box for routing certain transfers. I'd receive instructions to transfer to:

  Buyer: Firstname Lastname
  Email: mobiletransfertickets+12341234@gmail.com
With a different +number for different transactions, this happened numerous times in 2022 across multiple shows, so I think it was Stubhub, not an outside party. At other times, it'd have me transfer directly to the buyer's email address.

They probably moved away from the single Gmail address for some reason, over to their own domain names they control? I don't think it necessarily implies they are buying your tickets, just that they are routing the transfers through them possibly for verification.


Wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a team of people all logged into that gmail address manually verifying and forwarding tickets.

After all, processing PDF's and images of tickets forwarded from customers automatically and reliably is probably very hard.


Stubhub: Hello my name is Mr. Snrub and I come from some place far away. Yes, that will do...


This has been going on for years, if the government doesn't want to do anything about it, I don't see what else you can do other than stop buying tickets.


Add onescentvision.com to the list


Who has a domain tools enterprise account? Probably an interesting rabbit hole to go down. Looking at all the domains tied to SH.


In a similar vein, I was using DraftKings to play draft fantasy football I think two years ago. Spent $20 but split the bets between ten games and chose the players I would play against. For all ten games, I lost but the other players all used the same team. Makes you think.


You can add traveltouchdiscover.com and widefree.org to the list.


Market making on behalf of artists and content rights holders :)


Probably, yeah.


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