Washington has a Supreme Court StubHub accuses the company of hiding all kinds of fees from consumers until the last minute. The suit calls out the “deceptive practice of charging hidden garbage fees” and calls it a “classic bait-and-switch scheme.”
Anyone who has bought tickets through StubHub or its many competitors is probably familiar with the sticker shock that comes with exiting. Allegedly, additional fees can increase the total cost of the ticket by up to 40 percent. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb says it involved “a series of deceptive, manipulative and unfair practices.”
Here’s how StubHub’s drip pricing scheme works:
1️⃣ First, StubHub entices customers to buy tickets by displaying deceptively low prices that do not include mandatory fees.
The real, significantly higher price, with unnecessary fees, is not revealed until the end of the process. pic.twitter.com/EsRj0uy3e2
— AG Brian Schwalb (@DCAttorneyGen) July 31, 2024
These practices include the aforementioned bait and switch. The company allegedly advertises “deceptively low” ticket prices by adding additional fees after a consumer clicks through multiple pages. Throughout this process, StubHub displays a countdown timer that urges users to act quickly and thereby accept additional payments without thinking about it. Schwalb calls it a “dark pattern” that creates a “false sense of urgency.” This is different .
The fees themselves are said to be subject to vague and mysterious policies such as “fulfilment and service”. There is no adequate explanation in these policies, and the applicable fees vary widely per claim. The lawsuit alleges that StubHub did not disclose how these fees were calculated or even why.
The complaint alleges that StubHub sold 4.9 million tickets in Washington, D.C. alone, and collected more than $118 million in hidden fees based on the above methods. This claim doesn’t discount the numbers for other cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, though I’d imagine those residents attend ticketed events in large numbers.
“We are disappointed that the D.C. Attorney General is targeting StubHub when our user experience is consistent with the law, the practices of our competitors and the broader e-commerce sector,” said John Lawrence, StubHub’s deputy general counsel. .
Schwalb alleges that StubHub violated the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA) to the point of being “lawful.” The drip pricing strategy mentioned above is not allowed because the law requires merchants to provide actual information about consumer goods sold in the city. The AG asked the court to financially penalize StubHub and order it to stop the allegedly deceptive practices.
“The hidden fees in the ticketing industry have really gotten out of hand. The advertised price is the price we have to pay, writes Sally Greenberg, CEO of the National Consumers League. accompanying the claim.
This is the latest attempt to discourage ticket sellers from using unnecessary fees to fill their coffers. Under President Biden, the federal government has been From 2022, when it caused a direct fiasco by Ticketmaster actually existed and added a lot of junk fees. In 2023, the FTC proposed a rule prohibiting unnecessary payments. A decision on this will be made by the end of the year.
The House also passed a bill in May to force ticket sellers to display actual prices at the beginning of the purchase process, rather than at the end. Finally, the DOJ took legal action against Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, earlier this year, accusing it of a monopoly that resulted in high ticket prices.
