StubHub's Estimated Fees Are 'Intentionally Misleading,' Says Calif. Class Action

StubHub’s suggestion that users can apply an “estimated fees filter” to search for tickets is an “intentionally misleading statement,” alleged a class action Monday (docket 2:24-cv-03318) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles.

Quoting the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the complaint says “the word estimate ‘implies a judgment, considered or casual, that precedes or takes the place of actual measuring or counting.” On StubHub.com, however, “there is no judgment to be had,” said the complaint. “StubHub knows exactly how much it will tack on in fees,” and when users turn on the website’s estimated fees filter to filter for a price range, distance from the stage or to view the tickets’ prices with estimated fees, StubHub “consistently and systematically understates the estimated fees it charges users according to a strict computer algorithm,” it said.

Plaintiff Brian Hong, a resident of Sierra Madre, California, conducted over 100 ticket selection experiments on StubHub and found that the company “invariably understates the total cost (with estimated fees) of every single ticket quoted at or above $20 by an exact amount of $3 per ticket,” the complaint alleges. For tickets quoted below $20, StubHub understates the total cost (with estimated fees) “by exactly between $2 and $3 per ticket,” it said. The understated total costs occurred “every single time" in his testing, it said.

When a consumer turns on StubHub's estimated fees filter, the ticket prices “immediately increase,” said the complaint. When a consumer selects tickets with the filter, the price StubHub lists is “purportedly the amount the consumer will pay,” it said, giving the example of a ticket to a Beyonce concert shown as $512 each, including all fees. After selecting tickets, consumers are taken to a page that confirms the event, date, location, time and seat number. StubHub “immediately creates a false sense of urgency and scarcity with a large pop-up that appears" telling the buyer he has 10 minutes to complete the purchase, it said.

StubHub requests payment details and gives the final price, which is more than what it initially advertised, the complaint said. In the Beyonce ticket example, after a “hopeful concertgoer clicked through nine pages and popups,” StubHub "discreetly” hiked the price to $1,030, or $515 per ticket, up from $512, it said.

StubHub “is not estimating anything,” the complaint said. The ticket selling service is “misrepresenting the price it claims it can cause tickets to be delivered to customers by a consistent amount,” it alleged. “Worse yet, this bait and switch is made even more deceptive by the fact that the price increases only at the final checkout screen, after the customer is put on a prominently displayed 10-minute shot clock to review over a half dozen cluttered screens that inundate them with colorfully distracting information,” it said.

When customers reach the checkout screen, “the price increase is not obvious and requires quick-witted memory and mental math,” the complaint said. During the buying process, on each screen before the checkout screen, ticket costs are displayed as “each” vs. the “aggregated together” price at checkout, it said. The website limits how long customers can remain on the checkout screen “to determine by how much they are being cheated, because when the clock runs out, they are kicked out and must begin the whole process all over again,” it alleged.

The complaint cited a 2022 FTC report on “dark patterns” and “junk fees” companies use online to “trick or manipulate consumers into making choices they would not otherwise have made.” The practice of scarcity creates pressure to buy immediately, and a “fake countdown clock” that resets creates pressure to buy immediately, it said.

Other practices the FTC cited include obstruction, to keep shoppers from comparing prices by not disclosing the overall cost; adding hidden fees or advertising only part of a product’s total price at first and then imposing additional “mandatory” charges later in the buying process; using style and design to distract consumers and steer them into making a certain selection; making users create an account via “forced registration” to buy a ticket; and preselecting a default, such as the estimated fees filter, that is good for the company “but not the user,” it said.

Hong alleges that StubHub violates the California Ticket Seller, Unfair Competition and False Advertising laws and the state's Consumers Legal Remedies Act. He also asserts claims of fraud and unjust enrichment. StubHub didn't comment.