Is Stubhub Hate Growing Across The Nation?

In 2021, you would think it would be simple to hop on a website, buy a ticket to a sporting event, and have that ticket instantly delivered to you. But some StubHub customers are finding out that it's not that easy.

What's Going On? According to complaints on several consumer review sites, including Trust Pilot and Customer Service Scoreboard, StubHub is being inundated with complaints about compromised tickets, and customer support is unable to help in a timely manner.

One complaint on Friday comes from a user that was missing tickets to a University of Georgia football game. The customer called customer service to inquire about the missing tickets, waited on hold for three hours, and was told the tickets would be delivered by Friday. The StubHub user didn't get his tickets by the promised date, which resulted in another three-hour wait on hold for the customer service team.

The review on Trust Pilot, from Jason Leverett, reads:

"If you buy tickets on Stubhub that are not available immediately or same day, buyer beware! STUBHUB CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRIBLE!!!!...3 hour hold time on Monday to check on tickets purchased on July 29th for Clemson/Georgia that had not been delivered. The lady in the Carribean customer svc assured me my tickets would be delivered by 9/3. it is 9/3 and I still dont have my tickets."

StubHub's job listing page currently has listings for 30 positions, but surprisingly, none for a customer service representative.

A Little History: Eric Baker cofounded StubHub in 2000 while attending the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Aided by the enormous amount of money thrown into online startups in the early 2000s, StubHub grew rapidly. But Baker and the other founders clashed on StubHub's direction.

Baker wanted to focus on partnerships with major sports leagues, while fellow co-founder Jeff Fluhr wanted to grow StubHub independent from other organizations. Baker was eventually ousted from StubHub in 2004, but held a strong affinity for the company.

Flash forward to 2006, and Baker launched a new ticket exchange based in London: Viagogo. Meanwhile, eBay EBAY acquired StubHub for $310 million. Baker opposed StubHub's acquisition, saying that Fluhr had sold out too early.

Since 2018, StubHub has been led by Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. But in January 2020, Baker saw an opportunity to get back into StubHub, the company he helped found some 20 years prior. Baker took on $2 billion in debt to purchase StubHub back from eBay for a total of around $4 billion. 

And then… the COVID-19 pandemic hit, adding extra strain on the ticket industry.

See Also: What You Should Know About Viagogo

What's Next? Since Baker bought back StubHub, the company has faced serious problems regarding customer service. Customer Service Scoreboard rates StubHub a 49.75, which would be fantastic if the scale was to 50, but the site's scale goes up to 200 possible points.

Forbes published an article outlining Baker's 2020 purchase of StubHub from eBay titled "Worst. Deal. Ever." If StubHub is unable to fix its existing customer service problems, the deal will look even worse over time.

Benzinga reached out to StubHub regarding the reported customer service issues.

Photo: Mike Mozart, Flickr