StubHub Faces Class Action Over Canceled World Cup Tickets
Mark Gallagher did everything by the book. Bought early. Paid big. Trusted the platform.
Hours before kick-off in Vancouver, his World Cup dream vanished with a cancellation notice.
Now he’s taking StubHub to court.
The Vancouver resident has filed a proposed class action on behalf of Canadian ticket buyers after StubHub cancelled his $11,407 pair of prime seats for Canada vs. Qatar on June 18 — tickets he’d secured back in February and had been assured, repeatedly, would land in his FIFA account.
They never did.
Gallagher received his money back, but not his moment. The lawsuit, filed in Vancouver on Wednesday, seeks punitive damages and alleges a “conspiracy of deception,” accusing StubHub of listing tickets “which they knew would not or could not be honoured.” None of the claims have yet been tested in court.
He is the first in Canada to launch a class action against the resale giant, following similar legal moves in New York and California over the mass cancellation of World Cup tickets.
StubHub, which promotes a “FanProtect Guarantee” that promises refunds or replacement tickets “within 5 business days,” now finds itself under intense scrutiny as angry customers line up with stories of delays, denials and dead ends.
The company declined to answer detailed questions about its refund and dispute practices, sending only a brief statement: “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. We never want to give a refund and no fan wants to receive one — we want you to get to your event.”
Travel dreams, no safety net
The human cost of those cancellations stretches far beyond the ticket price.
From Barrie, Ont., Kelly Mongillo drove 10 hours to New Jersey with her elderly father to watch a World Cup match on June 13. She’d spent about $1,800 on tickets through StubHub, and another $2,500 on hotels, gas and food.
Game day. Outside the stadium. Then the email: cancelled.
Mongillo says StubHub’s vaunted guarantee gave her a false sense of security. She says the company repeatedly assured her that replacement tickets would be found if the originals fell through, yet when the worst happened, StubHub refused to cover any of her travel-related losses.
The company’s “Global User Agreement” includes a waiver that seeks to block Canadian and U.S. customers from suing for anything beyond a ticket refund — no travel, no hotels, no legal fees tied to cancellations.
After Mongillo went public in June, StubHub offered both a refund and replacement tickets for another World Cup match in Toronto. She accepted the tickets, but says the company later backed away from the promised cash refund.
The trip, and the chance to share it with her father, is gone for good.
When a lawyer speeds up the ‘guarantee’
Others have discovered that the quickest route to a refund runs through a law office.
Jennifer Hale in Toronto paid nearly $3,000 for tickets to a Team Canada game on June 12. StubHub cancelled. She immediately asked for her money back.
Weeks passed. Then more weeks.
Hale says she has spent hours on the phone, repeatedly told to wait another 72 hours, then informed it might take up to 45 days. As of her last account, no refund, no resolution.
Just as that kind of delay has become a familiar story, the pattern breaks when legal pressure arrives.
West of Toronto in Georgetown, Ont., Denis Radetic waited a month for his refund, listening to a rotation of excuses. Then he hired a U.S. lawyer who has been contacted by hundreds of frustrated StubHub users.
Radetic’s lawyer sent a letter threatening further legal action and demanding both a refund and $3,000 US in legal fees, accusing StubHub of “potential fraud … negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract.”
Suddenly, the logjam cleared. On Sunday, StubHub reached out and refunded his credit card.
The company would not explain why customers who hire lawyers or speak to the media seem to get faster results. To add insult, StubHub later sent Radetic a survey asking how he enjoyed the game he never got to see.
A maze called arbitration
On paper, StubHub offers a path for those who don’t accept its decisions: a U.S.-based arbitration process. In reality, critics say, it’s a labyrinth.
The company instructs unhappy customers to send “notices of dispute” via certified mail. That’s where many hit a wall.
Menlo Park lawyer Brad Clements, who represents Radetic and hundreds of other buyers and sellers in both the U.S. and Canada, says StubHub’s arbitration system is built to wear people down, not resolve their claims.
He points to one telling detail: StubHub has changed the address for sending those certified dispute notices seven times in 14 months. The Canadian site, StubHub.ca, doesn’t even spell out where or how to file such a notice.
StubHub declined to explain the address changes or the missing information on its Canadian platform.
To Clements, the intent is obvious: make the process so confusing and exhausting that most fans simply give up, never tell their friends they won, never talk about interest, lost time or punitive damages. Just walk away and swallow the loss.
How StubHub profits from failure
Most fans assume that when a ticket order collapses, everyone loses. Not quite.
Randy Nichols, a New York-based band manager, says StubHub actually makes money on transactions that fall apart. Once fans are refunded, StubHub turns to the seller and charges them the full listed price of the ticket — even though StubHub never owned it.
The company says the policy is meant to deter fraudulent or bogus listings. The effect is starker: “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, but its seller rules are blunt. Drop a sale and the company can charge you either 100 per cent of the ticket price or the full amount it spends to “remedy” the failed transaction, whichever is higher.
When a fan’s dream night disappears, the platform still gets paid.
The interest game
For some customers, the issue isn’t just cancelled tickets. It’s what happens to their money while StubHub holds it.
In Spokane, Wash., Jeff Ripley is taking the company to arbitration after his World Cup tickets, bought in December, were cancelled on game day. He wants more than face value back.
His argument is simple: StubHub sat on his money for months, earning interest. Multiply that by thousands of buyers, and the numbers grow quickly.
StubHub reported $41 million in interest income in its November 2025 earnings report for the previous year. The company handled $9.2 billion in ticket resales globally last year.
StubHub declined to discuss the interest it makes off customers’ funds.
Ripley likens the model to a bank collecting free loans. Fans deposit money for tickets, StubHub holds it, earns interest, and can still walk away from the deal if the tickets collapse.
“There has to be some accountability for companies that are taking money, earning interest on it and then not providing a product,” he says.
With class actions now emerging on both sides of the border and fans demanding answers, the question is no longer whether StubHub can get people into the biggest games on earth.
It’s whether it can convince them to trust it with their money ever again.
