DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit Wednesday against StubHub, alleging the live event ticket resale platform swindled District residents out of $118 million over nearly a decade through deceptive pricing practices.
The lawsuit, filed in DC Superior Court, alleges StubHub violated the city’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act through its ticket purchasing process, in which users are presented with an initial fee only to be hit with “hidden junk fees” later on.
DC is seeking to have StubHub pay civil penalties, as well as repay money the suit claims was “secured from its unlawful conduct.”
“StubHub lures consumers in by advertising a deceptively low price, forces them through a burdensome purchase process, and then finally reveals a total on the checkout page that is vastly higher than the originally advertised ticket price,” Schwalb said in a statement. “This is no accident—StubHub intentionally hides the true price to boost profits at its customers’ expense.”
In a statement to Washingtonian, a StubHub spokesperson wrote that the New York-based company is “disappointed that the DC Attorney General is targeting StubHub when our user experience is consistent with the law, our competitors’ practices, and the broader e-commerce sector.”
The lawsuit, with screenshots attached, walks readers through a customer’s attempt to purchase Usher tickets at the Capital One Arena on StubHub—going through a series of menus while an on-screen clock ticks down, which the suit claims creates a “false sense of urgency.”
The final price for two tickets is only viewable at the end of the process, and jumps from $356 to $497 because of a service fee.
The suit claims StubHub “never discloses to the consumer” its calculation process or what the service fee goes toward. It also claims the company’s “Estimated Fees Filter”—a tab on the StubHub website that purportedly shows viewers a full price that includes mandatory fees—did not actually show full prices until March 2024, when the Attorney General’s office reached out to the company.
In a statement, the Attorney General’s office said that StubHub’s alleged unfair pricing scheme had the potential to disproportionately affect DC, as the city’s customers “spend more per capita on live entertainment” than those in New York City or Los Angeles. Schwalb’s office estimates StubHub’s pricing practices, which it refers to as “dark-pattern-laced drip pricing,” have cost DC customers $118 million in hidden fees since September 2015, when StubHub began its current selling process.
In its statement, StubHub said it is “committed to creating a transparent, secure, and competitive marketplace to benefit consumers. We strongly support federal and state solutions that enhance existing laws to empower consumers, such as requiring all-in pricing uniformly across platforms.”
The DC lawsuit comes as the Biden Administration has attempted to crack down on “junk fees” across industries ranging from banking to telecommunications.
