StubHub Faces Class Action Over Canceled World Cup Tickets
Mark Gallagher did everything right. Bought early. Paid big. Followed every instruction.
He still ended up at home on his couch while Canada kicked off their World Cup in Vancouver.
Now he’s taking StubHub to court.
The Vancouver resident has filed a proposed class action on behalf of Canadian ticket buyers after the resale giant cancelled his World Cup seats — and thousands of others — hours before kick-off. His $11,407 pair of prime tickets for Canada vs. Qatar on June 18, purchased in February, vanished despite repeated assurances they would land in his FIFA ticketing account.
He got his money back. The experience, he says, is not something a refund can fix.
“Missing the event — that outcome isn't measured in dollars,” he told CBC News. He’s now seeking punitive damages and alleging StubHub engaged in a “conspiracy of deception” by advertising and selling tickets “which they knew would not or could not be honoured.”
The lawsuit, filed in Vancouver on Wednesday, is the first proposed class action against StubHub in Canada, echoing similar legal battles already underway in New York and California. None of the claims have yet been tested in court.
StubHub, which promotes a “FanProtect Guarantee” promising refunds or replacement tickets “within 5 business days,” is facing a wave of anger from fans who say they’ve been left chasing their money for weeks or months.
Pressed with detailed questions about its refund and dispute practices, the company declined to address specifics and instead issued a 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.”
For many, that promise has rung hollow.
Travel costs? You’re on your own
Ask Kelly Mongillo what the fine print really looks like.
She drove 10 hours from Barrie, Ont., to New Jersey with her elderly father to watch 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.
StubHub cancelled their tickets on game day. They were standing outside the stadium gates when the email came.
Mongillo says the company has been dismissive, and that the FanProtect Guarantee offers nothing for what she calls the “significant financial losses and disappointment” she suffered.
“It provides consumers with a false sense of security,” she told CBC News. She says she relied on repeated assurances that replacement tickets would come through if there was a problem. When they didn’t, she discovered StubHub would not cover any of her travel costs.
Buried in StubHub’s “Global User Agreement” is a waiver that seeks to block Canadian and U.S. customers from suing for anything beyond the ticket refund itself — no travel, no hotels, no legal fees.
After Mongillo went public in June, StubHub stepped in with a partial olive branch: a refund and replacement tickets to another World Cup match in Toronto. Her father couldn’t attend that game. She accepted the tickets anyway.
She says the company has since backed away from the cash refund.
The fans who hire lawyers get paid first
The pattern repeats across the continent: a cancelled ticket, a promised refund, and then a long silence.
Jennifer Hale from Toronto paid nearly $3,000 for tickets to a Team Canada game on June 12. StubHub cancelled. She asked for a refund immediately.
More than a month later, she was still waiting.
Hale described spending hours on the phone. Each time, she was told to wait another 72 hours. One agent told her it could take up to 45 days. No refund. No clear timeline. No resolution.
Others decided not to wait.
Denis Radetic of Georgetown, Ont., endured a month of delays before hiring a U.S. lawyer who has been contacted by hundreds of frustrated StubHub customers. In a sharply worded letter, Radetic demanded both his refund and $3,000 US in legal fees, accusing the company of “potential fraud … negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract.”
He believes StubHub is testing how far fans will go to get their money back.
“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.”
Once the lawyer got involved, the stalemate ended. On Sunday, StubHub contacted Radetic and refunded his credit card.
The company would not explain why customers who hire legal counsel — or go to the media — seem to get swifter attention.
Adding insult, StubHub later emailed Radetic a survey asking how he enjoyed the game he never saw.
An arbitration maze few fans can navigate
On paper, StubHub offers a path for those who still feel wronged: a U.S.-based arbitration process. Its policy tells unhappy customers to file “notices of dispute” and take their case to private arbitration instead of court.
In practice, that route has become another flashpoint.
Brad Clements, a lawyer in Menlo Park, Calif., who represents Radetic and hundreds of other StubHub buyers and sellers in both Canada and the U.S., says the system is designed 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. 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 said.
One example: Clements says StubHub has changed the mailing address for certified dispute notices seven times in 14 months. Each change forces consumers to track down new details and risks invalidating previous attempts.
StubHub’s Canadian site, StubHub.ca, doesn’t list any address or clear instructions on how to file a formal notice of dispute.
StubHub declined to explain the address changes or the lack of dispute information on its Canadian platform.
“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 tickets vanish, StubHub still gets paid
The financial structure behind the scenes may surprise fans who assume StubHub loses money when it cancels tickets.
According to Randy Nichols, a New York–based band manager who has scrutinized StubHub’s practices, the company can actually profit when orders fall apart.
Here’s how it works: StubHub refunds the buyer, then turns to the seller and charges them the full ticket price as a penalty for failing to deliver — even though StubHub never owned the tickets itself. The company says the policy deters 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. Which means that StubHub makes money on every order that they don’t fulfill,” Nichols said.
StubHub declined to comment on his assessment. 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.”
For fans, it’s a jarring reality: a platform that can collect fees on a deal that never gets them through the turnstiles.
The interest clock keeps ticking
While fans wait for refunds, StubHub holds their money. For some, that’s become the core of the dispute.
Jeff Ripley of Spokane, Wash., is taking the company to arbitration after his World Cup tickets, bought in December, were cancelled on game day. He wants more than the face value back.
“They're sitting on that money, making interest on it. How many thousands of people has this happened to?” he asked in an interview with CBC News.
StubHub reported earning $41 million in interest in its November 2025 earnings report for the previous year. The company refused to discuss how much of that comes from funds tied to ticket purchases.
Ripley argues StubHub has started to resemble a financial institution, holding customer cash for months at a time while collecting interest.
StubHub facilitated the resale of $9.2 billion in tickets globally last year. For Ripley, that scale raises hard questions about how long the company can hang on to fans’ money without meaningful oversight.
“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.”
With class actions now gathering pace on both sides of the border, that accountability may finally be coming — whether StubHub is ready or not.
