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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

#141

Post by GigabyteCoin »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #81
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 investigat…

>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 dolla…

>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.

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

#142

Post by DrScump »

mbcrower wrote: post #97
mikeash wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tickets were already sold. What would be forced here would be delivery of what was sold. They can't exactly force that either, but they should be able to force penalties or restitution if they fail to perform.

I've never used StubHub. When you buy tickets, does a seller profile appear next to the listing, as in Amazon? If so, a cheap move by this seller should at least put a bad mark on the seller's public profile. That could benefit reputable sellers, though. Of course, anyone selling their first tickets on StubHub would be at a disadvantage because they'd have no reputation.

  does a seller profile appear next to the listing
No. Sellers can't even provide details on their tickets besides the few checkbox yes/no options.

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

#143

Post by DrScump »

ijustwanttovote wrote: post #98

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.

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.

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

#144

Post by Dylan16807 »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #141
Dylan16807 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 dolla…

>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 perpetrator…

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.

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

#145

Post by mikeash »

DrScump wrote: post #135
mikeash wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, for paper tickets there needs to be a trusted third party that handles them. There's no need to send the tickets in advance, but once the sale occurs, you'd really have to send them through StubHub or another third party. I see no reason StubHub couldn't do this, of course. They could even spin it as a feature: the seller never learns your address and your privacy is protected! For electronic tickets, w…

You're right, for paper tickets there needs to be a trusted third party that handles them Stubhub does no such thing. For physical tickets, seller ships to buyer. For PDF tickets, seller just uploads them; the upload constitutes delivery. For events that Stubhub lacks hooks into the ticketing system (mostly baseball), they do nothing to vet tickets. Buyers are advised to create a listing in TicketExchange (or whomeve…

I know they don't, I'm saying they should. They are currently vulnerable to bad sellers screwing over buyers, but that's just because of how they chose to structure their business, not an inherent problem.

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

#146

Post by Lawtonfogle »

eridius wrote: post #110
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a lot like cancelling orders when an online system lists a $1999 product for only $19.99. Even if you already bought the product, if I catch it before the product is shipped, can I not cancel the order?

That's not the same thing at all. Listing a $1999 product for only $19.99 is clearly a mistake, not intentional on the part of the seller, and it is obvious to any reasonable person that the buyer must know that this was a mistake when purchasing it. On the other hand, listing a product for fair market value and then cancelling when the market value skyrockets after the sale is not at all reasonable behavior. I assum…

There are clearly difference between how we see it as people, but I was talking in regards to how the law sees the contracts themselves. For example, how can the law tell the difference between a significant discount at an error. I've purchased things at 98% off their sell price and which were far less than their market value, even accounting for the sell price being above their market value. The stores had different reasons for giving such a discount, but they weren't given in error.

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

#147

Post by talmand »

slg wrote: post #113
talmand wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 Se…

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.

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

#148

Post by eridius »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #146
eridius wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the same thing at all. Listing a $1999 product for only $19.99 is clearly a mistake, not intentional on the part of the seller, and it is obvious to any reasonable person that the buyer must know that this was a mistake when purchasing it. On the other hand, listing a product for fair market value and then cancelling when the market value skyrockets after the sale is not at all reasonable behavior. I assum…

There are clearly difference between how we see it as people, but I was talking in regards to how the law sees the contracts themselves. For example, how can the law tell the difference between a significant discount at an error. I've purchased things at 98% off their sell price and which were far less than their market value, even accounting for the sell price being above their market value. The stores had different…

So was I. There is a legal difference between the two. IANAL so I don't actually know how the legal difference is defined, but I think it's something along the lines of, should it be obvious to a reasonable customer that the price is likely in error?
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