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.
The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
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Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#12The 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.
Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#13This 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...
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."
Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Why laws? How about just contracts binding those in the market?
You're right. That's probably the proper legal solution.
Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#15To 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 sell…
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.
Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#17Simple 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.
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.
Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#18The 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.
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.
> SH has no mechanism to ensure delivery of the ticket.
StubHub fully supports digital tickets that are immediately delivered upon purchase. They should, IMHO, require this when it's available.
Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#19To 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 sell…
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Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.