Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued online ticketing platform StubHub on Wednesday for hidden fees and deceptive pricing practices — including the use of a “countdown clock” and an arduous checkout.
The lawsuit alleges that StubHub employs what’s known as “drip pricing,” the practice of advertising only part of a price and then revealing other charges as the consumer goes through the buying process.
After being forced to click through over a dozen pages, with a countdown timer displayed somewhere on the screen to create a false sense of urgency, the customer has to decide whether to pay a much higher price than they started out with — or go through that same process over again, according to the suit.
“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.”
Schwalb added that the District’s residents are disproportionately harmed by StubHub’s practices, given its especially large and active live entertainment scene.
Ticketing platforms have come under fire for deceptive pricing practices, as the Biden administration made removing hidden fees a priority across industries. Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation Entertainment and SeatGeek agreed to transition to “all-in” pricing last year, which lets customers see the full cost of a ticket, including fees, upfront. In May, the Department of Justice — along with 29 states and the District of Columbia — sued Live Nation and asked a court to break up the company over claims it has maintained an illegal monopoly over the live entertainment industry.
“Hidden fees in the ticketing industry have truly gotten out of control. The price that is advertised is the price that we should pay—full stop,” National Consumers League chief Sally Greenberg said in a statement Wednesday.