Secondary ticketing marketplaces oversell Champion’s league final

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Ahead of this past weekend’s Champion’s league final in Spain, major secondary ticketing marketplaces StubHub and Viagogo both warned customers who had purchased tickets that they may well not be valid.

With tickets exchanging hands for up to £10,000 each this has been a major glitch in the plans of many fans who in some cases had spent many thousands more in travelling to Madrid with both air fare and accommodation prices being hiked by suppliers eager to cash in on the football fever.

eBay owned Stubhub have stepped in promising full refunds for everyone who purchased a ticket which they were unable to supply. Additionally they have offered an additional €1,500 in compensation but it comes with a kicker, accept the €1,500 and you’re signing away your rights to sue the company for any other out of pocket expenses incurred such as your travel costs.

Stubhub have said that they carry out ongoing ‘vigorous checks’ on all sellers using their platform and will be reviewing the situation in detail after the weekend but their priority was to address the needs of customers who had purchased tickets in the short term.

Lifelong Spurs fan and BBC Radio Wales presenter Wynne Evans has revealed that he spent £7,000 on two tickets for him and his son through secondary ticketing marketplaces just to be told the sale had been cancelled. The 47 year old coughed up for a second pair of tickets for an even higher price although he didn’t reveal to the BBC quite how much the replacement tickets ended up costing him.

“My 14-year-old son was distraught and heaven knows how many other fans they’ve mugged off. After I paid up, the agency emailed me to say they were not able to fulfil my order. It looks like they sold the tickets to me then resold them when they realised they could get a lot more for them”
– Wynne Evans, Spurs fan and BBC Radio Wales presenter

2 Responses

  1. The press normally run stories along the lines of “tickets being sold at 5 times face value” on the various secondary ticket sites, usually quoting the most expensive tickets available, but in reality, the seller probably will not have the ticket, but if they do get a sale, then they have plenty of margin to source one.

    If its a really popular event like this years CL final, they may have tickets for sale on different sites at different prices and they will, if they do manage to source some, fulfil the orders they got the most money for.

    Different countries have different views of re-selling, in the US for instance, pretty much once you have purchased your ticket , the next screen says, do you want to sell your ticket.

    The US tops the list of countries who purchase World Cup Finals tickets every tournament and whilst quite a few do go, most of the tickets appear on the secondary market.

  2. Yet another massive, high-profile botched oversold eBay event in about a month.

    In case you missed it, eBay and Hasbro oversold a highly promoted exclusive Magic the Gathering game early April
    ? https://channelx.world/2019/05/30826-ebay-orders-cancelled-in-one-day-record.html

    It is this reader’s opinion that this massive refund-related eBay blunder, in addition to merchant revolt, was a contributing factor in PayPal’s decision to leave its US market refund-fee money-grab unenforced (but still technically in effect) for the time being.

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