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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

#121

Post by 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

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.

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#122

Post by dang »

tacon wrote: post #114
CPLX wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not obvious they sold for a higher price, they may have used them or never had them. But the real problem is proving an actual loss. There was a contract to exchange X tickets for Y money. Nothing changed hands, the buyer didn't lose anything, there aren't any damages to sue for. Obviously they could try a cause of action for lost opportunity to profit from the transaction from legal standpoint, but it's much ha…

Your "legal analysis" is woefully lacking. Have you, for example, ever glanced at a Contracts Law text book? Or read the Wikipedia articles about contract law? Heck, have you even watched The People's Court? Just you sitting in your armchair and coming up with something that seems reasonable in your mind does not a legal argument make, or refute. As far as profiting from hypothetical things that never happened, see J…

Personal attacks, which this crosses into, are not allowed on HN. Please make your point without resorting to that.

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#123

Post by CPLX »

bradleyjg wrote: post #120
CPLX wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. Certainly one could make the argument. My point was more that it would be a major uphill battle to get damages in excess of a total refund from the seller Among the many issues, another raised here is the presence of specifically enumerated remedies: > Failure to fulfill your orders will lead to charges as stated in the Seller Policies. Which could well be interpreted as limiting the liability of the seller…

No, that provision applies to the contract between the seller and Stubhub, it doesn't have a bearing on the contract between the buyer and the seller. As for remedies, see my post above. The usual measure of damages in contract is expectation, not restitution. Breach of contract claims deal with "hypothetical things that never happened" all the time, that's required by the very nature of expectancy damages. And in an…

> This is just like selling 100 shares of AAPL and then before T+3 happens deciding you aren't going to honor the sale because the price has since gone up.

There is some resemblance but no, actually this is not just like that at all. One of the two things is a financial instrument and security and one isn't, the primary purpose of the ticket purchase is to gain the personal enjoyment of attending a sporting event. A ticket is not an asset like a stock or real estate.

I get the concept in the abstract for sure, and it's not an impossible argument. My point though, borne of some related experience, is that it's going to be awfully hard to prove damages beyond the money spent, and actual tangible consequential damages if any. Many intuitively think the legal system should work the way you describe, myself included, but in practice it has more of a laser-focus on the financial aspects of a transaction only.

Here's a discussion of a very similar situation: http://wileylegal.com/super-bowl-breaches-of-contract/

Money quote: "Contract Law remedies are designed to retrace steps in an effort to put the injured party back in the same financial place they would be had the contract been properly performed. Many argue that this approach doesn’t account for emotional damage and disappointment, and they are correct."

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#124

Post by brk »

smt88 wrote: post #96
brk wrote: post #95

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 effi…

> 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, whi…

My understanding is that Ticketmaster has exclusive contracts with the vast majority of primary venues in the US. Nobody, artist or venue, is really choosing Tickemaster any more than a Comcast customer chooses Comcast as the only game in town.

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#125

Post by GnomeChomsky »

th0br0 wrote: post #21

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 Presid…

For what it's worth, I'm at least one person who bought tickets on Tickets for Less instead of StubHub because of this. This kind of goodwill PR works.

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#126

Post by eli »

bradleyjg wrote: post #117
eli wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but I think you'd have a hard time convincing a judge of that math.

IAAL (but not his lawyer or your lawyer). The standard measure of damages in contract is expectancy, that is the breaching party has to put the non-breaching party in as good a position as he would have been had he not breached. Had the seller not breached the buyer would have had tickets with a fair market value of $6000 (at the time of breach) and been out the $900 he paid for the tickets. After the breach the buye…

Genuinely curious how the law applies here. How is the "time of the breach" determined? When the buyer got the email that sale was voided? If that email were sent a few days earlier or later would that change the amount of damage the buyer suffered? That doesn't seem right. (The FMV of the tickets goes to $0 after the game, right?)

I guess I don't really follow why the buyer is entitled to appreciation on something that was never in their possession.

If the tickets had instead declined in value before the seller backed out then wouldn't the buyer still get back all their money? I assume it would be unacceptable to refund them just the then-current FMV, so why is it different when the tickets appreciate in value?

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#127

Post by etherealmachine »

CPLX wrote: post #123
bradleyjg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that provision applies to the contract between the seller and Stubhub, it doesn't have a bearing on the contract between the buyer and the seller. As for remedies, see my post above. The usual measure of damages in contract is expectation, not restitution. Breach of contract claims deal with "hypothetical things that never happened" all the time, that's required by the very nature of expectancy damages. And in an…

> This is just like selling 100 shares of AAPL and then before T+3 happens deciding you aren't going to honor the sale because the price has since gone up. There is some resemblance but no, actually this is not just like that at all. One of the two things is a financial instrument and security and one isn't, the primary purpose of the ticket purchase is to gain the personal enjoyment of attending a sporting event. A…

Linked from that really good Super Bowl article:

Consequential Damages: These are intended to reimburse the injured party for indirect damages other than contractual loss; for example, loss of business profits due to an undelivered machine. In order to recover, the injuries must "flow from the breach," i.e. be a direct result of the breach, and be reasonably foreseeable to both parties when they entered into the contract.

Your opinion sounds like it comes from experience, which is usually useful in legal matters. However, buying a new ticket at the inflated price seems very reasonable to foresee by both parties and the small-claims court judges I've known are usually no-nonsense. If this came up in my life I would personally buy the tickets and take the risk in small claims court 3 months later.

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#128

Post by URSpider94 »

eli wrote: post #126
bradleyjg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IAAL (but not his lawyer or your lawyer). The standard measure of damages in contract is expectancy, that is the breaching party has to put the non-breaching party in as good a position as he would have been had he not breached. Had the seller not breached the buyer would have had tickets with a fair market value of $6000 (at the time of breach) and been out the $900 he paid for the tickets. After the breach the buye…

Genuinely curious how the law applies here. How is the "time of the breach" determined? When the buyer got the email that sale was voided? If that email were sent a few days earlier or later would that change the amount of damage the buyer suffered? That doesn't seem right. (The FMV of the tickets goes to $0 after the game, right?) I guess I don't really follow why the buyer is entitled to appreciation on something t…

You are confusing possession with ownership.

The buyer owns the tickets from the moment the purchase is complete, whether or not he has received them.

If the tickets went down in value in the interim time, then the most expedient thing for the seller to do to cure the problem would be to buy new tickets at the now-reduced price and hand them over to the buyer. You are absolutely right, the buyer can't demand his money back if the tickets go down in value -- he has to accept tickets that are fundamentally the same in value as the ones he was supposed to get.

Now, if for whatever reason the seller couldn't replace the tickets even though the price has dropped (unlikely -- that's pretty much the definition of a price, is that the item is available in exchange for money), then he might be able to ask for his money back instead.

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#129

Post by URSpider94 »

mikeash wrote: post #72
URSpider94 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, the most eBay will do is make sure you get your money back if the seller doesn't deliver. That's exactly what StubHub did, AND they offered him hundreds in gift certificates as well. The problem here is that getting one's money back doesn't feel like enough, because you're losing out on massive appreciation of the purchase between when you bought it and now. This is one of the most difficult cu…

With eBay the seller also has to deliver in a timely fashion. You're right, if they fail then the best that happens is you get your money back, but you find out reasonably quickly whether or not they're going to perform, and there's never any confusion about whether or not the transaction has completed. So a big part of this problem is that StubHub is letting sellers cheat buyers out of massive appreciation by not gi…

As others have mentioned, in many cases the seller doesn't physically have the tickets at the time of sale, and might only get them a few days before the game. Ticketmaster cooperates with venues to do this to -- dum dum dum -- avoid ticket resale. That's the problem.

Re: The Surreal Story of StubHub Screwing Over a Kobe Fan

#130

Post by URSpider94 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #87
mikeash wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They technically did follow through. Their guarantee is to provide comparable tickets or a refund. Comparable tickets were not available (because their idea of "comparable" includes "at the same price," ha ha ha) and they provided a refund.

They did not follow through on actually protecting the fans, just restoring the original money. They are presenting the appearance that they will ensure the purchase, while the terms actually promise no such thing.

What? A company oversold its guarantee by using creative definitions?

Next thing you know, people are going to start offering a lifetime guarantee that's only good for the lifetime of the product! ;)

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