Washington, D.C., sues StubHub, saying resale platform inflates ticket prices with misleading fees

WASHINGTON – Washington, D.C.’s attorney general sued StubHub on Wednesday, accusing the ticket resale platform of advertising deceptively low prices and then inflating prices with extra fees.

The practice known as “drip pricing” violates consumer protection laws in the nation’s capital, said Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

“StubHub intentionally hides the real price to increase profits at the expense of its customers,” he said in a statement.

The company said it is disappointed to have been targeted, maintaining that its practices are consistent with the law and those of competing companies, as well as broader industry standards. “We strongly support federal and state solutions that improve existing laws to empower consumers, such as requiring full pricing uniformly across all platforms,” the company said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the suit says StubHub hides mandatory “fulfillment and service” fees until the end of a lengthy online purchasing process that often requires more than a dozen pages to complete as a countdown clock creates a sense of emergency.

This makes it “nearly impossible” for buyers to know the true cost of a ticket and compare to find the best price, he said. Fees vary widely and can total more than 40% of the advertised ticket price, the lawsuit alleges.

New York-based StubHub is one of the largest ticket resale platforms for sports, concerts and other live events in the world.

Sally Greenberg, CEO of the nonprofit advocacy group National Consumers League, applauded the lawsuit. “Hidden fees in the ticket industry have really gotten out of control. The advertised price is the price we must pay – period,” she said. Ticket fees were also part of a broad antitrust case that the Justice Department filed against Ticketmaster and its parent company in May.

StubHub used to advertise the “all-inclusive” cost of a ticket about a decade ago, but changed it after discovering that people are more likely to buy tickets at higher prices with the “trickle-down pricing” model, he said. .

Washington residents’ per capita spending on live entertainment exceeds that of many other major U.S. cities, and since 2015, StubHub has sold nearly 5 million tickets in Washington and collected about $118 million in fees, the lawsuit claims .

The action seeks compensation and blocking of tariff practices. Schwalb sat down another process last year with the Washington Commanders on fans’ season ticket deposit money.