StubHub under fire for pricing scheme

TheStreet’s Conway Gittens brings you the biggest news of the day, including what investors are watching and why StubHub is in hot water

Transcript

00:00I'm Conway Gittins reporting from the New York Stock Exchange.

00:03Here's what we're watching on the street today.

00:05Investor sentiment is on the upswing after strong meta results.

00:08Better-than-expected sales and profits soothed recent concerns about the AI revolution.

00:13Wall Street will be looking for confirmation from Amazon and Apple after the closing bell.

00:18Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims surged to their highest in 11 months,

00:22putting renewed focus on the job market ahead of Friday's key employment report.

00:28Turning to other headlines, StubHub is being sued by the Attorney General of Washington, D.C.

00:33for allegedly using a, quote, classic bait-and-switch scheme

00:38where customers are tricked into paying higher fees for tickets.

00:41Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwab said in a statement, quote,

00:45StubHub lures consumers by advertising a deceptively low price,

00:49forces them through a burdensome purchase process,

00:52and then finally reveals a total on the checkout page

00:55that is vastly higher than the original advertised price.

00:58This is no accident.

01:00The lawsuit lays out a claim that StubHub creates a, quote,

01:03false sense of urgency by using a countdown clock,

01:07which then creates the idea that consumers have to buy right away or miss out on their tickets.

01:12StubHub switched to this business model in 2015.

01:15Since then, according to the lawsuit,

01:17it has sold roughly five million tickets in Washington, D.C. alone,

01:21resulting in $118 million in, quote, hidden fee revenue.

01:26The company says it is disappointed in the lawsuit

01:29and urged new laws that require, quote, all-in pricing uniformly across platforms.

01:35That will do it for your daily briefing from the New York Stock Exchange.

01:38I'm Conway Gittins with The Street.