Good things are happening! StubHub’s hidden fees are too high, a judge tells Google to look up “monopoly,” a multibillion-dollar settlement will resolve hundreds of wildfire lawsuits, and Ohio says “high” to legal cannabis.
StubHub Gets Snubbed
The Washington, D.C. attorney general sued the ticket resale company StubHub for allegedly deceiving customers about the true cost of ticket prices by tacking on arbitrary fees. StubHub allegedly made $118 million off of these hidden fees after the company implemented them in 2015. Along with its practice of imposing hidden fees, StubHub has faced criticism for years for artificially inflating the price of resale tickets.
Attorney General Brian Schwalb accused StubHub of using a “bait-and-switch” technique by advertising deceptively low prices before adding mandatory fees. He also criticized the use of a 10-minute countdown timer on the webpage while customers are checking out, arguing that it created a “false sense of urgency.” These countdown timers tap into customers’ fears of missing out to get customers to buy before the time runs out. However, this process can leave customers feeling manipulated and deceived.
I very frequently attend cultural events. I will not buy any ticket to anything if the ticket is sold by TicketMaster, Eventbrite, or any other company that adds unreasonable extra fees (StubHub would be included). Sometimes, as in this post, it's not obvious until you see the advertised ticket price, go through the process of proposing to buy a ticket, and finding out near the end that the price you're to be charged is a lot higher than the advertised price. So at that point, I end the session, and do not buy the ticket. If a venue wants to add a small convenience or venue fee (usually about $2), and I like the venue, I'll pay it. Otherwise, I'd rather not go. That cuts out swaths of cultural offerings, but I will not enable these companies to steal from me. And they do worse than stealing money. They buy out the house, and are not fair about which seats they offer to sell to whom.
Fred