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Thursday, September 16, 2021
StubHub to Refund Over 75k Customers for Events Canceled During the Pandemic
www.businessinsider.com: StubHub will pay at least $16.7 million to refund tickets purchased by thousands of customers who had events canceled last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
My first thought when I read the title of this article was “They haven’t done that yet.” But reading about the civil suits that makes more sense as to why this is only now happening. This article lists a few states and territories that were involved in the suits and then says that those places have refunds over $16.7 million which is all that is listed in the article as what they are paying in refunds, so I wonder if only people in those states are getting refunds, and everyone else still gets the credits equal to 120% of their purchases for future events. Considering this is an ongoing civil suit and has been going on for a while, I am surprised I had not read anything about it until now, or about what appears to be a similar situation that happened last year with Ticketmaster. I am sure it is hard for these companies to lose so much money, as it has been for all aspects of the event industry, but I do think they needed to honor their refund policy for canceled events.
I was actually one of these people! I had tickets to go see the Black Keys last August. I purchased the tickets in February of 2020 and by May the show had been cancelled. I was issued credit for stubhub rather than a refund despite paying the additional sum for "insurance" should the show get cancelled.
The credit would have expired at the end of this year regardless of whether I used it. So even if no shows happened due to the pandemic I would be SoL.
I was able to receive my refund this past May because there was a very small window where they were allowing people to opt out of the credit and get their money back.
I think it's atrocious how we basically just let a few companies scalp tickets for far above their face value. Sites like Ticketmaster and Stubhub are just that. Sites. They have no stake in productions and it was wrong of them to hold onto their customers money in the first place. If they were true production companies I would feel bad for them losing money over the course of the pandemic but I do think these companies shouldn't be allowed to be in business. If I am paying far above face value for a ticket I would prefer that money go the venue and artist I am paying to see rather than to some faceless corporation that practices such blatantly anti-consumer practices and reneges on their own policies.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I have been waiting to swing this axe I've been grinding for like 20 months now.
It is so interesting to see a number on all of the refunds for the pandemic. $16 million dollars seems unfathomable, and for most companies would be detrimental to return. I am honestly really surprised to see that it took StubHub almost two years to offer somewhat of a refund and I am so happy that action was taken against the company for these returns to happen. I know there were a lot of people that did not request refunds over the pandemic because they wanted to hold out for things to be rescheduled, so StubHub could have potentially afforded to return everything much sooner and not have completely lost everything. I think returning credits instead of the money itself is kind of a huge blow to the people that purchased tickets, but might be the only way for StubHub not to go bankrupt? It’s a great thing that moving forward StubHub will be more open and upfront about their return policies.
I have always been rather skeptical of StubHub. Their customer service is nearly unreachable, and I have been on hold for hours at a time. It has only gotten worse since the pandemic. With the risk associated with purchasing StubHub tickets, which is of course the tickets being fake, I wouldn’t foresee anyone dealing with their hiked-up prices without the security of their fan guarantee. Their fan guarantee states that if the tickets are counterfeit StubHub will refund the tickets or look for another ticket to the event. The catch is getting in touch with customer service. What StubHub did with refunding customers post pandemic is wrong. They also should have refunded ticket holders much earlier. However, it was most likely what needed to occur to ensure the company wouldn’t go under. StubHub has such a monopoly on the industry that I really doubt this will affect business for them at all.
It’s not particularly surprising that StubHub was trying to hold on to all the money it could when covid hit, and trying to postpone their losses until there would be another source of income to soften that blow. It’s also not particularly fair to provide credit that expires during covid when everyone is aware that there weren’t going to be new events for some time, which is likely where the lawsuit came from. StubHub and Ticketmaster are both somewhat known for their shady business practices, though, their platforms allowing scalpers to bot-grab tickets early and then sell them for insane markup while the company takes a percentage of that in fees. A quick google search says that StubHub’s annual revenue is around $1.1 billion, which probably doesn’t account for covid, but also is enough that refunds probably wouldn’t have hurt them too much. It seems like the lawsuit process did its job, though - people get their money back, and StubHub got to wait to do it until concerts are returning.
According to Stubhub’s FanProtect Guarantee, Stubhub promises consumers full refunds of the purchase price and fees customers paid for tickets, the key clause being even if their events had been cancelled. Attorney generals in 10 states and the District of Columbia had filed civil suits against StubHub. Due to the pandemic and its resulting lockdowns, thousands of concerts, sporting events, and other miscellaneous events were cancelled. Instead of honouring their guarantee, they decided to give customers credits equal to 120% of their purchases to be used for future events. Last year, Ticketmaster faced similar issues regarding refunds of events canceled because of the pandemic. Both Ticketmaster and Stubhub are subject to the same consequences--refunding their customers for cancelled events. As someone who was living in Asia and did not attend any events, I vaguely heard of this happening in terms of people I knew being awarded credits. Given that within the time frame that is valid for credits to be used that COVID may or may not be safe, not giving a refund is illogical and irresponsible, especially since money is more applicable than Stubhub credits during a worldwide health crisis.
6 comments:
My first thought when I read the title of this article was “They haven’t done that yet.” But reading about the civil suits that makes more sense as to why this is only now happening. This article lists a few states and territories that were involved in the suits and then says that those places have refunds over $16.7 million which is all that is listed in the article as what they are paying in refunds, so I wonder if only people in those states are getting refunds, and everyone else still gets the credits equal to 120% of their purchases for future events. Considering this is an ongoing civil suit and has been going on for a while, I am surprised I had not read anything about it until now, or about what appears to be a similar situation that happened last year with Ticketmaster. I am sure it is hard for these companies to lose so much money, as it has been for all aspects of the event industry, but I do think they needed to honor their refund policy for canceled events.
I was actually one of these people! I had tickets to go see the Black Keys last August. I purchased the tickets in February of 2020 and by May the show had been cancelled. I was issued credit for stubhub rather than a refund despite paying the additional sum for "insurance" should the show get cancelled.
The credit would have expired at the end of this year regardless of whether I used it. So even if no shows happened due to the pandemic I would be SoL.
I was able to receive my refund this past May because there was a very small window where they were allowing people to opt out of the credit and get their money back.
I think it's atrocious how we basically just let a few companies scalp tickets for far above their face value. Sites like Ticketmaster and Stubhub are just that. Sites. They have no stake in productions and it was wrong of them to hold onto their customers money in the first place. If they were true production companies I would feel bad for them losing money over the course of the pandemic but I do think these companies shouldn't be allowed to be in business. If I am paying far above face value for a ticket I would prefer that money go the venue and artist I am paying to see rather than to some faceless corporation that practices such blatantly anti-consumer practices and reneges on their own policies.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I have been waiting to swing this axe I've been grinding for like 20 months now.
It is so interesting to see a number on all of the refunds for the pandemic. $16 million dollars seems unfathomable, and for most companies would be detrimental to return. I am honestly really surprised to see that it took StubHub almost two years to offer somewhat of a refund and I am so happy that action was taken against the company for these returns to happen. I know there were a lot of people that did not request refunds over the pandemic because they wanted to hold out for things to be rescheduled, so StubHub could have potentially afforded to return everything much sooner and not have completely lost everything. I think returning credits instead of the money itself is kind of a huge blow to the people that purchased tickets, but might be the only way for StubHub not to go bankrupt? It’s a great thing that moving forward StubHub will be more open and upfront about their return policies.
I have always been rather skeptical of StubHub. Their customer service is nearly unreachable, and I have been on hold for hours at a time. It has only gotten worse since the pandemic. With the risk associated with purchasing StubHub tickets, which is of course the tickets being fake, I wouldn’t foresee anyone dealing with their hiked-up prices without the security of their fan guarantee. Their fan guarantee states that if the tickets are counterfeit StubHub will refund the tickets or look for another ticket to the event. The catch is getting in touch with customer service. What StubHub did with refunding customers post pandemic is wrong. They also should have refunded ticket holders much earlier. However, it was most likely what needed to occur to ensure the company wouldn’t go under. StubHub has such a monopoly on the industry that I really doubt this will affect business for them at all.
It’s not particularly surprising that StubHub was trying to hold on to all the money it could when covid hit, and trying to postpone their losses until there would be another source of income to soften that blow. It’s also not particularly fair to provide credit that expires during covid when everyone is aware that there weren’t going to be new events for some time, which is likely where the lawsuit came from. StubHub and Ticketmaster are both somewhat known for their shady business practices, though, their platforms allowing scalpers to bot-grab tickets early and then sell them for insane markup while the company takes a percentage of that in fees. A quick google search says that StubHub’s annual revenue is around $1.1 billion, which probably doesn’t account for covid, but also is enough that refunds probably wouldn’t have hurt them too much. It seems like the lawsuit process did its job, though - people get their money back, and StubHub got to wait to do it until concerts are returning.
According to Stubhub’s FanProtect Guarantee, Stubhub promises consumers full refunds of the purchase price and fees customers paid for tickets, the key clause being even if their events had been cancelled. Attorney generals in 10 states and the District of Columbia had filed civil suits against StubHub. Due to the pandemic and its resulting lockdowns, thousands of concerts, sporting events, and other miscellaneous events were cancelled. Instead of honouring their guarantee, they decided to give customers credits equal to 120% of their purchases to be used for future events. Last year, Ticketmaster faced similar issues regarding refunds of events canceled because of the pandemic. Both Ticketmaster and Stubhub are subject to the same consequences--refunding their customers for cancelled events. As someone who was living in Asia and did not attend any events, I vaguely heard of this happening in terms of people I knew being awarded credits. Given that within the time frame that is valid for credits to be used that COVID may or may not be safe, not giving a refund is illogical and irresponsible, especially since money is more applicable than Stubhub credits during a worldwide health crisis.
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