StubHub Faces Class Action Over Cancelled World Cup Tickets

Mark Gallagher thought he’d done everything right.

He paid early. He paid big. He followed the rules.

And hours before kick-off of Canada vs. Qatar in Vancouver, his $11,407 pair of World Cup tickets vanished.

StubHub cancelled.

Now Gallagher wants more than his money back. He wants a reckoning.

The Vancouver resident has launched a proposed class action in Canada against the ticket resale giant, accusing StubHub of a “conspiracy of deception” for advertising and selling tickets “which they knew would not or could not be honoured.” He’s seeking punitive damages, not just a refund, after missing a match he’d built his plans — and expectations — around.

“You never get to see it again,” he told CBC News. “Even though you had the full intent and followed whatever the rules were to get there. So what I hope to get out of this is change.”

His lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Vancouver, is the first proposed class action against StubHub in Canada, mirroring similar legal battles already underway in New York and California over cancelled World Cup tickets. None of the allegations have yet been tested in court.

Gallagher’s story is depressingly familiar to thousands of fans.

He bought prime seats in February for the June 18 game in Vancouver. In the weeks leading up to kick-off, he chased updates. StubHub, he says, repeatedly reassured him his tickets would appear in his FIFA account. Days passed. Then hours. Still, he was told to expect delivery.

Instead, he got a cancellation notice.

StubHub refunded the ticket price. But the lost experience — the anthem, the atmosphere, the once-only moment — is what drives Gallagher to court.

Behind StubHub’s marketing promise of a “FanProtect Guarantee,” which pledges refunds or replacement tickets “within 5 business days,” lies a much messier reality. CBC News has heard from legions of StubHub customers describing delays, denials and dead ends in their attempts to get compensation for a range of events.

Asked detailed questions about its refund and dispute practices, StubHub declined to address specifics. It sent a brief statement instead.

“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. “We never want to give a refund and no fan wants to receive one — we want you to get to your event.”

For many, that promise has rung hollow.

Travel costs? You’re on your own

Tell that to Kelly Mongillo.

She drove 10 hours from Barrie, Ont., to New Jersey with her elderly father for a June 13 World Cup match. She spent about $1,800 on tickets through StubHub and another $2,500 on hotels, gas and food.

On game day, standing outside the stadium gates, her tickets were cancelled.

No match. No memories. No coverage for the thousands she’d poured into the trip.

Mongillo says StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee gave her a “false sense of security.” She says she relied on repeated assurances that replacement tickets would be provided if the originals fell through. When they didn’t, she discovered the guarantee doesn’t stretch to travel costs or other related expenses.

StubHub’s “Global User Agreement” includes a waiver aimed at blocking Canadian and U.S. customers from suing to recover anything beyond a ticket refund — including travel costs or legal fees linked to cancellations.

When Mongillo went public with her story in June, StubHub moved quickly. The company offered her both a refund and replacement tickets to another World Cup game in Toronto. Her father couldn’t attend that match, but she accepted the tickets.

The refund? She says StubHub has since backed away from that promise.

The squeaky wheel gets paid

If patience doesn’t pay with StubHub, pressure often does.

Jennifer Hale in Toronto paid nearly $3,000 for tickets to a Team Canada match on June 12. StubHub cancelled. She immediately asked for a refund.

More than a month later, she was still waiting.

Hale says she has spent hours on the phone, repeatedly told to “wait 72 hours” and, most recently, that it could take “up to 45 days.” No refund. No proactive contact.

“I’m not sure what else to do?” she wrote in an email.

Denis Radetic, from Georgetown, Ont., decided he did know what to do.

After a month of delays over his cancelled tickets, he hired a U.S. lawyer who has been contacted by hundreds of angry StubHub users. In a sharply worded letter, Radetic demanded his refund and an additional $3,000 US in legal fees, accusing StubHub of “potential fraud … negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract.”

The tone changed.

On Sunday, StubHub reached out. His credit card was refunded shortly afterward.

Radetic suspects that’s no coincidence.

“I’m sure a lot of people are hesitant about hiring a lawyer,” he said. “I feel like StubHub is kind of taking advantage and seeing who will really push them to get the money back versus who will just kind of let it go with time and perhaps not get their money back.”

StubHub would not explain why customers who hire lawyers or speak to the media seem to get faster resolutions.

The final insult? After refunding Radetic, StubHub sent him a survey asking how he’d enjoyed the game.

He never got in.

A maze called arbitration

For fans who don’t go public or lawyer up, StubHub’s official path to justice runs through a U.S.-based arbitration system.

The company’s terms direct dissatisfied customers to file “notices of dispute” via certified mail. On paper, it looks like a formal, neutral process. In practice, critics say, it’s a deterrent.

Menlo Park lawyer Brad Clements, who helped Radetic and now represents hundreds of StubHub buyers and sellers from both sides of the border, calls the process “a total farce.”

“They're trying to make it look like they're going to do right by the consumer and they really care about the consumer,” he said. “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.”

Clements says StubHub has changed the mailing address for dispute notices seven times in the last 14 months. Each notice must go by certified mail. Each address change risks confusion, delay, or a rejected filing.

StubHub’s Canadian site, StubHub.ca, doesn’t list any address or clear instructions on how to file an official dispute at all.

StubHub declined to say why the address keeps changing or why its Canadian site omits dispute details.

“They don't want people bringing cases,” Clements said. “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 a cancelled ticket still pays

The anger isn’t just about cancelled tickets. It’s about who profits when things go wrong.

Fans might assume StubHub loses out when an order collapses. Not so, says New York-based band manager Randy Nichols.

He argues StubHub actually makes money when it cancels.

Here’s how: when StubHub refunds a buyer, it then charges the seller the full listed price of the ticket they failed to deliver — a 100 per cent “fine” — even though StubHub never owned the ticket in the first place. The company says the policy is designed to deter fraudulent or bogus listings.

“The way StubHub is currently structured, they charge the seller a 100 per cent fine on every ticket that they don't deliver,” Nichols said. “Which means that StubHub makes money on every order that they don’t fulfill.”

StubHub declined to comment on his characterization. Its seller policies do warn resellers: “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.”

Cancelled for the fan. Costly for the seller. Still lucrative for the platform.

Interest, delays and “free loans”

Then there’s the time value of money.

Jeff Ripley from Spokane, Wash., bought World Cup tickets through StubHub last December. On game day, his tickets were cancelled. He’s now taking StubHub to arbitration, arguing the company owes him more than just the face value of the tickets.

His point is simple: StubHub held his money for months. It earned interest. He got nothing.

“They're sitting on that money, making interest on it. How many thousands of people has this happened to?” he asked.

StubHub reported earning $41 million in interest in its November 2025 earnings report for the previous year. The company also facilitated $9.2 billion in ticket resales globally last year.

StubHub would not comment on the interest it collects on customer funds.

Ripley says the model looks less like a marketplace and more like a financial institution using fans’ cash as no-interest deposits.

“There's something wrong,” he said. “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, Mongillo, Hale, Radetic, Ripley and the thousands like them, that accountability may now be decided not in stadiums, but in courtrooms.