StubHub Faces Class Action Over World Cup Ticket Cancellations
Mark Gallagher thought he’d done everything right.
Prime seats. A World Cup match on home soil. Canada vs. Qatar in Vancouver on June 18. He paid $11,407 back in February through StubHub, watched his FIFA account for weeks, chased reassurances in the days and even hours before kickoff that his tickets were coming.
Then, just before game time, the tickets vanished. Cancelled.
He got his money back. He did not get the night back. Now he wants something else.
On Wednesday, the Vancouver resident filed a proposed class action lawsuit against StubHub, the ticket resale giant, on behalf of Canadian buyers whose World Cup tickets were cancelled. He accuses the company of a “conspiracy of deception” for advertising and selling tickets “which they knew would not or could not be honoured,” and is seeking punitive damages.
If certified, it would be the first class action of its kind in Canada against StubHub, following similar legal moves in New York and California over the mass cancellation of World Cup tickets. The claim, filed in Vancouver, has not yet been tested in court.
StubHub insists its mission is simple. “Our goal is to get every fan into their event, every time, and if something goes wrong, we always want to find them replacement tickets,” the company said in an emailed statement, pointing to its “FanProtect Guarantee,” which promises refunds or replacement tickets “within 5 business days.”
But from Vancouver to New Jersey to Toronto, fans tell a very different story.
Travel costs? You’re on your own
For many, the ticket price was only the start of the bill.
From Barrie, Ont., Kelly Mongillo drove 10 hours to New Jersey with her elderly father to see a World Cup match on June 13. She spent about $1,800 on tickets through StubHub, and another $2,500 on hotels, gas and food.
They reached the stadium. They waited outside the gates.
Then came the notification: cancelled.
Mongillo says StubHub repeatedly assured her that if the original tickets fell through, replacement tickets would come. Instead, she says she was left with “significant financial losses and disappointment” and a guarantee that, in her view, provides “a false sense of security.”
StubHub’s “Global User Agreement” includes a waiver that attempts to block Canadian and U.S. customers from suing to recover anything beyond the ticket refund itself — no travel, no hotels, no legal fees tied to cancellations.
After Mongillo went public in June, StubHub offered her both a refund and replacement tickets to another World Cup game in Toronto. Her father couldn’t attend, but she accepted the tickets.
She says the refund never arrived. StubHub, she claims, has since backed away from that part of the deal.
The refund clock moves faster when lawyers step in
Others have found that patience alone doesn’t pay.
Jennifer Hale of Toronto paid nearly $3,000 to StubHub for tickets to a Team Canada match in Toronto on June 12. StubHub cancelled. She immediately asked for her money back.
More than a month later, she was still waiting.
Hale says she has spent hours on the phone, repeatedly told to wait “72 hours,” then told it might take up to 45 days. No refund. No follow-up.
In Georgetown, Ont., Denis Radetic decided not to wait any longer. After a month of delays and scripted answers, he hired a U.S. lawyer who has been contacted by hundreds of StubHub customers.
In a letter threatening further legal action, Radetic demanded a refund for his cancelled tickets and an additional $3,000 US for legal fees, accusing the company of “potential fraud … negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract.”
The tone changed quickly. On Sunday, StubHub contacted him and refunded his credit card.
StubHub would not explain why customers who hire lawyers or speak to the media appear to get faster responses. The company did, however, send Radetic a survey afterwards — asking how he enjoyed the game he never saw.
Arbitration: a maze, not a map
For fans who don’t want to walk into court, StubHub points to arbitration.
Its policy directs unhappy customers to file “notices of dispute” through a U.S.-based arbitration process. On paper, that’s an alternative path. In practice, some say it feels like a dead end.
Brad Clements, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based lawyer, helped Radetic recover his money and says he is now representing hundreds of StubHub buyers and sellers in both the U.S. and Canada.
He believes the arbitration system is built to wear people down.
“They're trying to make it look like they're going to do right by the consumer and they really care about the consumer,” Clements says. “But it's a total farce, because they have everything actually designed to intimidate you, delay you, deny you, if you do bring a dispute.”
He points to one detail as a symbol of the process: the address.
According to Clements, StubHub has changed the address where customers must send certified “notices of dispute” seven times in the last 14 months. StubHub’s Canadian site, StubHub.ca, doesn’t list any details on where or how to file such a notice.
StubHub declined to explain the address changes or the absence of dispute instructions on its Canadian site.
“They don't want people bringing cases,” Clements says. “They want to make it so godawful for you that you don't go and tell your friends that you won your refund plus interest plus some amount for lost time plus punitive damages, right?”
When tickets disappear, StubHub still gets paid
The anger isn’t only about delays. It’s also about the basic economics of a cancelled ticket.
Most fans assume StubHub only makes money when a ticket is successfully resold and a fan gets through the turnstile. Not so, says Randy Nichols, a New York-based band manager who tracks the live events industry closely.
Nichols says StubHub profits even when orders fall apart.
Here’s how: when StubHub cancels and refunds a buyer, it then charges the seller the full listed price of the ticket — a 100 per cent penalty — even though StubHub never owned the ticket itself. The company says the policy is there to deter fraudulent listings and sellers who fail to deliver.
”The way StubHub is currently structured, they charge the seller a 100 per cent fine on every ticket that they don't deliver. Which means that StubHub makes money on every order that they don’t fulfill,” Nichols says.
StubHub declined to comment on that characterization. Its seller policies are clear, though: “If you dropped your sale, we will charge your payment method an amount equal to the greater of (i) 100% of the price of the ticket(s) sold or (ii) the full amount incurred by us to remedy the dropped sale.”
For fans, that raises a sharp question. If the platform can profit from failure, what incentive is there to fix it?
The interest game
There’s another layer that infuriates buyers: time.
StubHub holds customers’ money for weeks or months between purchase and event. When tickets are cancelled late, that cash has already been sitting in the company’s accounts.
Jeff Ripley of Spokane, Wash., is taking StubHub to arbitration over World Cup tickets he bought last December, only to see them cancelled on game day. He argues he’s owed more than just the face value.
“They're sitting on that money, making interest on it. How many thousands of people has this happened to?” he asks.
StubHub reported earning $41 million in interest in its November 2025 earnings report for the previous year. The company would not comment on the interest it collects on customers’ funds.
Ripley wants to see regulators step in and examine how a company that facilitated the resale of $9.2 billion in tickets globally last year can hold on to fans’ money for so long without sharing any of the financial upside.
“There's something wrong,” he says. “They almost work like a financial institution in that I deposited money in a savings or checking account and they got interest.”
“There has to be some accountability for companies that are taking money, earning interest on it and then not providing a product.”
For Gallagher in Vancouver, that accountability now runs through a courtroom. He got his refund. He lost his World Cup night. The question now is whether a judge will decide that, for StubHub, paying back the ticket price is no longer enough.
