Overview
- Several buyers reported that tickets bought on resale sites were canceled or never transferred shortly before matches, leaving families outside stadiums or scrambling for last-minute seats.
- StubHub has pointed to FIFA’s new ticketing app and tighter transfer rules as a key cause and says it is investigating individual cases and enforcing penalties on sellers who fail to deliver.
- Affected customers say some sellers appear to cancel earlier, lower-priced listings as resale prices spike, and many problem orders involved StubHub’s ‘category’ purchases that do not list specific seat numbers.
- StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee pledges refunds or comparable replacement tickets but gives the company discretion to choose refunds instead of replacements and has at times issued fixes only minutes or hours before kickoff after media attention.
- The breakdown highlights a recurring industry risk: speculative or under‑backed listings and new organizer controls can leave buyers exposed when demand surges and third‑party transfers become harder to complete.