StubHub: Dark patterns in event ticket sales

In August 2024, the Washington, D.C. attorney general filed a lawsuit accusing StubHub of deceptive practices. The lawsuit highlights how StubHub uses hidden fees and manipulative design tactics to mislead consumers. These practices, which include countdown timers and fake scarcity tactics, are designed to pressure customers into making quick decisions without fully understanding the total cost. Let’s dive in!

When we arrive on the event page, StubHub uses several design tactics that are classic examples of dark patterns aimed at creating sense of fake scarcity. They display that the event is in "high demand" and conveniently show that the last ticket sale occurred just 13 hours ago—strategically timed to make you feel like you need to act fast.

After we pick a ticket, we’re presented with detailed information about the event. Let’s focus on some particularly interesting points:

1. Ticket price: Each ticket is priced at C$169, with a clear statement that this price includes estimated tax, booking, and non-optional delivery fees. The term “non-optional delivery fees” is especially misleading because the “delivery” consists of nothing more than a digital image on your phone (more details in this later).
2. “Demand for this Event” section: This section suggests that 41 people have viewed the event in the past hour, a classic urgency tactic, design to creates pressure, nudging the user towards making a quick purchase to avoid missing out despite no evidence that the demand is genuinely high.

As curious users, we naturally want more information, so we hover over the “i” icon after the phrase: “Prices include estimated tax, booking, and non-optional delivery fees.” Here, we encounter a direct contradiction to the previous sentence: “Final tax, booking, and delivery/handling fees will be calculated after you select your preferred delivery method and location (if applicable) later in the checkout process.” This bait-and-switch approach misleads users into thinking they have all the cost information upfront.

Feeling the urgency yet? Let’s continue our journey through StubHub to see if we can uncover more dark patterns or other forms of deceptive design.

After selecting our desired tickets, we land on a page with at least 5 elements with fake scarcity tactics designed to pressure us into buying these tickets ASAP.

1. 41 People Viewed: This is a recycled urgency tactic from the previous screen, continuing to pressure the user.
2. Demand for this event: Another urgency-based manipulation indicating that the demand is high, selectively displayed only when it suits the platform's interest.
3. “Prices for this Event Are Currently at Their Lowest…”: A third consecutive dark pattern, this time leveraging fear of future price increases to pressure the user into buying now.
4. 10-Minute Timer: The timer in the right top corner of the screen, gives you just 10 minutes to buy, is a classic countdown timer tactic, designed to rush the user into making an impulsive decision without adequate time to consider alternatives and compare prices.
5. Recently Sold Tickets: As a final nudge, the platform emphasizes that a ticket was sold just 10 hours ago—conveniently, just enough time to make the user feel like they could miss out if they don’t act immediately.

To better understand how StubHub operates, we explored other events. Unsurprisingly, 3 out of 4 opened events featured the same urgency-driven messaging: each event had the “at the lowest average price…” alert.

The green stripe across every event page clearly attempts to convince users that they must buy now, reinforcing a false sense of scarcity.

Ticket delivery

Another notable dark pattern at StubHub involves the ticket delivery process. When entering your address, the “Delivery” section promises that “You will receive tickets you can download and use on your mobile phone.” and there are no way to change that even if you would want it delivered to you personally.

If you were to buy a ticket to the Taylor Swift concert in Toronto for C$3,264, C$708 of that price is actually a delivery fee just to receive your ticket as a digital image—the same method used for P!NK tickets, which cost C$131 and include a delivery fee of C$31."

One of the main reasons for the lawsuit mentioned in the beginning, these fees “vary wildly” and aren’t related to fulfillment or service, Schwalb claimed in the lawsuit.

Upon reaching the payment page, we’re confronted with this: “Fulfillment and Service Fee, 5 × CA$33.” Essentially, sending you a single email with attached tickets costs $165, and there’s no way around it. You are forced to pay these so-called “delivery fees,” which are not fixed; the fee lowers/increases with the ticket price, making it an arbitrary and deceptive cost.

Hide bad view seats

Also, during this review, we also identified another dark pattern that StubHub uses to hide important ticket information when it benefits them. Most tickets come with a “view rating” for the seat, with ratings ranging from 10 to 1. But, any rating below 5 is conveniently hidden, leaving the user without any details about the actual quality of the view. This lack of transparency is a design choice to obscure potentially negative aspects of the purchase, manipulating the user’s perception of the product.

As we've seen throughout this exploration of StubHub's platform, the company's use of dark patterns and deceptive design tactics is pervasive. From hidden fees to fake scarcity, every step of the ticket-buying process is designed to manipulate users into making decisions that benefit the platform, often at the expense of transparency and fairness. The recent lawsuit filed by the Washington, D.C. Attorney General highlights just how far these practices have gone in 2024. Whether it's hiding true costs, pressuring users with countdowns, or hiding unfavorable information, StubHub's approach raises serious concerns about consumer rights in the digital marketplace.