Originally Posted by
dwai
I agree with this but he took advantage
Here's the example I have been giving people that I think is a fair comparison...if you pay for a first-class airline seat, you are doing that mainly to get the extra room that comes with that seat (especially if you don't take advantage of the free drinks), and you are paying 2-3x what a coach seat would cost. If you show up for the flight and find out that they coded it wrong and row 4 is actually coach, then stay on the flight because you need to get to the destination, that doesn't mean that you agree that it was ok for you to be charged first-class price for a coach seat. You would expect, at a minimum, to be refunded the difference between the first-class and coach prices.
In this case, I paid that first-class price, expected that room, and didn't get it. It is hard to determine the value of the "coach" seat because by rule they were not supposed to even exist or be sold. One of the main reasons that some cities, like Tampa, are allowing some large events is that the event providers agree to only seat people in pods. Of course, the more contagious and dangerous you believe Covid-19 to be, the less "flimsy" you would believe the reason is for the refund.
To be honest, it really did aggravate me that the seller knowingly broke the rules to get the sale, especially when it was supposed to be a safety precaution. The reduced seating capacity was already causing prices to skyrocket, and now they were going for more by illegally splitting the tickets. Had they sold all six together, they would have gotten about $21k...splitting them allowed them to get upwards of $35k.
And to be clear, I made an offer to StubHub...I told them they could keep the face value of the tickets, and refund the rest...I just didn't want to see anyone profiting from this sale that was made under false pretenses. Their response at the time was "you are NOT getting a refund".
Here's another thing that I never mentioned to Todd that is interesting to me...StubHub told me that the seller only paid $300 in fees to StubHub for selling the tickets. If I had sold $9,200 in tickets there, I would be paying StubHub a 10-15% commission. So how is this seller only paying 3-4%? My thought is that the seller is some sort of broker with a preferred relationship with StubHub. In which case, they should know the rules, and were definitely splitting the tickets for maximum profit. And maybe StubHub was covering for them initially...think about it - if StubHub only refunds me the fees I paid, they can still pay the seller 100% of the normal proceeds, still keep the sell fee, and no damage is done on their side. They don't want to take anything back from a preferred seller.
I still don't know why they caved before seeing if they could win the credit card dispute. It may be that the NFL did call them and tell them that something like this could affect their relationship. It's possible they were just worried about what it would look like for them if my wife or I did end up getting Covid. Or what if we just went to all sorts of media and told the story? Of course if we get a refund and get to see the Super Bowl, we're not really sympathetic victims, but what about the other potential buyers out there that now have to be worried that if they get their tickets from StubHub, they could be stuck sandwiched between two fat guys or two teenagers because StubHub is allowing sellers to break the rules? I think that is more of the story.