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Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

jordancolburn.com

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Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#81

Post by seanp2k2 »

hkmurakami wrote: post #62
jordancolburn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but to stick with the analogy, isn't this more like putting out empty boxes of TVs that have already been sold and having employees dressed as customers frantically buying them in front of regular customers. Thanks for reading btw, and thanks to whoever posted it here.

Which apparently is done at some of the new hip restaurants. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/1...

Hmm, I wonder if Amazon was doing this with their new store at Santana Row in SJ: https://imgur.com/a/qSVYG

Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#82

Post by wyqydsyq »

I'd argue they aren't deceiving users as those tickets were actually sold

It would be deceiving if they showed an artificially falling stock counter or something to that effect, but in reality they are showing actual true data, it is only the way in which they show it (randomly inserted amongst search results) that can cause a sense of urgency, but there is still no deception here.

Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#83

Post by kbenson »

digga3000 wrote: post #80
kbenson wrote: post #69

> if (!globals.hideUrgencyMessage && SH.mbox.justSoldEvent && urgencyMessageListings && urgencyMessageListings.length) { Have you considered that SH.mbox.justSoldEvent might be noting that there were recent sales, and while they weren't just sold as the page was loaded, the system may actually indicate that sales are happening and to be aware that the listings may not persist in the current state for long? As of righ…

This isn't completely relevant to your point, but I'm curious how you're seeing the sales times?

If you go to the pricing page on Stubhub's sales interface (as a seller) and open the developer console, you can see the request as it grabs the last X sales to show as a pricing guide. While the table rows representing each sale only include the date, the actual JSON data includes a full timestamp, and you can see it in that request.

Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#84

Post by kbenson »

jordancolburn wrote: post #77
kbenson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, after deleting the IDs multiple times, the same sold tickets kept popping up, even minutes later (didn't time it exactly, but it was a while). Well, those sales were almost 7 minutes apart. I just looked, and the next sale was at 2017-09-11T17:59:24.000Z, so almost 15 minutes later. > And why is it limited just to 2 of these unsorted previously sold items at the top and not just mark them in their place on…

I appreciate the thorough response. It did make me stop and think about my assumptions. You present some convincing points,but I still come to the same conclusion because: 1. The sales stop showing after the first load and the values are saved in application storage. Why would they hide them if they are so valuable to the user. My guess is that users would be annoyed to constantly see these values and the users would…

Fair enough, and some of those are good points that I perhaps wasn't giving enough credence to, particularly the first. The others have weight, but I think that weight canby mostly or fully mitigated by common business or implementation reasons (as noted previously).

Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#85

Post by yeukhon »

I am only a user, but I find TickPick a solid alternate choice to all other ticket sales sites. The "no BS hidden fee" got me hooked up (plus the company always give out promo code). Other products aren't as transparent.

But this sort of false urgency is misleading and should be illegal.

Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#86

Post by javabean22 »

So one time I bought tickets to a concert from Stubhub. Then the headliner cancelled their appearance due to unforeseen circumstances and what not. But the concert was not cancelled as there were extra acts who would still perform. The headliner's website informed ticket holders that they could get a full refund "at the place of purchase" if they wanted. I asked Stubhub about that, their reply was (I'm paraphrasing): "Get f..cked. No refund, no nothing.. We don't care."

Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#88

Post by anon1385 »

tyrust wrote: post #41
mbesto wrote: post #21

But growth hacking right? In all seriousness, I love how techniques like this are "ok" when the company is considered a "startup", but when it suddenly becomes "evil megacorp", it's all of the sudden considered deception.

I'd be surprised if anyone would think that this is ok for a company of any size.

You're on a YC website. They are open about looking for founders who do these kinds of things.

Keep in mind that YC invested in a startup that was running a service that added malware to software installers and when people called them out on it Paul Graham defended it and said they were doing nothing wrong because there was a tiny "pwn my machine" checkbox in the installer, and if people didn't uncheck that then clearly they wanted a load of malware installed.

I've been writing comments about this kind of thing on HN for years. This one was 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051099

Re: Is StubHub's Website Deceiving Users?

#90

Post by Roshie5u »

krrrh wrote: post #27

Booking.com are the all-time kings of this approach. The search results page is littered with highlighted messages like. “4 people are looking at this room now” “2 people just booked at this hotel” “Too bad you already missed out on this hot deal” “X% of the neighbourhood/city/region you’re looking at is already booked!” ... It’s quite likely real information, but the timeframes and language are vague enough to make…

I opened other tab with same place and I was getting warning about myself. They clearly know by session that it was same user just don't fix it on purpose :/
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