Scamming on StubHub: Common Scams? - Tech With Tech
StubHub Scammers: Scamming on StubHub? (Everything to Know)

Scamming on StubHub: Common Scams?

By Theresa McDonough

Here’s how you can get scammed on StubHub:

Probably the most common scam on StubHub occurs when you pay someone for tickets and they never actually give you the tickets. 

Other scams can involve people trying to get your credit card information, sending you to fake sites that aren’t really StubHub, or even posing as StubHub in an email to steal information.

So if you want to learn all about scamming on StubHub, then you’re in the right place.

Keep reading!

StubHub Scammers: Scamming on StubHub? (Everything to Know)

What Are the Most Common Scams on StubHub? (5 Scams)

Clearly, scams can and do happen on StubHub. 

What do they look like? 

What should you be watching out for? 

The most common scams are covered in detail below.

#1 Fake Sites

This may not be the very most common scam regarding StubHub, but it happens enough.

It’s also not limited to StubHub. 

You can run into this scam just about anywhere on the internet.

Here’s how it works. 

You want to buy tickets, so you search for them online.

You see a link for tickets that looks a lot like StubHub, so you click on it. 

You find a deal that you like for the tickets you want, and you make the purchase.

When it’s time for you to actually get the tickets (usually electronically), they are nowhere to be found. 

You try to contact the seller, and you get no response. 

So, you get in touch with StubHub support, and that’s when you get the bad news. 

You didn’t purchase your tickets using StubHub.

The website you went to looked a lot like StubHub. 

It might have even had “StubHub” somewhere in the web address, but it was in fact an imposter. 

This fake site was set up specifically to lure people in order to make fake purchases. 

And, there are no direct ways to try to get your money back. 

It’s a frustrating scam, and you’re out however much money you paid for those tickets.

#2 Redirects

The redirect scam looks and feels a lot like a fake website. 

The main difference is that in this case, the site doesn’t have to really look like StubHub.

There are two primary ways this breaks down. 

The first is that you are searching for tickets on the real StubHub site. 

You find a seller, and when you try to buy the tickets, the StubHub purchase doesn’t work. 

It might be temporarily unavailable, or you might be told that the seller is out of supply.

But, because you tried to make a purchase, you get an email. 

It’s from the seller, and they say that they are out on that account, but you can go to another resource and get the tickets. 

So, you follow the link they gave you, and you make a purchase. 

Since this is a scam, you know how it goes from here. 

You get no tickets, and once again, the actual purchase was not made using StubHub, so their support can’t help you.

Another way this can happen is through the use of malicious software. 

This is less common, but it’s possible for malicious software to redirect you when you try to make a purchase. 

Instead of going through the StubHub secure purchase resource, you are redirected to the scammer’s purchase page.

Any money you spend there is lost.

#3 Fake Tickets

This might be the most common scam on StubHub.

It’s unfortunate, but it definitely happens.

The scam is pretty simple. 

You search the site for the tickets you want. 

You find a seller and make a purchase. They then fail to deliver any tickets to you. 

Odds are, they never had tickets in the first place.

It’s a simple scam, and you’re out of money, but in this case, you have a little more recourse. 

Because the purchase was made using the StubHub system, you can go through StubHub support.

Now, there are never any guarantees about how this will all turn out. 

StubHub has its own system and methods they use to sort through claims of scams or bad behavior on the site. 

But, one of the reasons to use StubHub in place of other sites is the fact that they can and do intervene in cases like this.

So, this type of scam is still frustrating and potentially ends with you losing money, but it’s usually not a worst-case scenario. 

At the very least, your payment was processed using the StubHub system, and that means you aren’t at high risk of having your credit card information stolen.

#4 Stolen Data

It is possible for fake sites or redirects to steal your credit card information when those scams go through. 

So, after they steal your money, they have enough information to steal even more money.

It’s not a fun place to be.

But, you can have important data stolen even without those other scams. 

Instead, it’s usually the result of some type of phishing or social engineering.

Here’s how that works.

A person pretends to be from StubHub. 

They contact you, and the email even looks like it came from StubHub support.

Or, they can contact you as a seller listed on StubHub.

Either is possible (and other creative approaches might come up).

The person contacting you asks to confirm your account or payment information. 

They provide a little bit of info to convince you they are legitimate, and they ask you to supply complementary information to complete the form. 

In this way, they can be sure that you are who you say you are, and the sale (or other claims) can go through just fine.

Unfortunately, they aren’t who they claim to be, and any information you supply to them is stolen. 

If there’s enough info, they can steal your card or even your identity.

The easiest way to avoid this scam is to remember two simple things. 

First, no one on StubHub ever needs you to provide your password in an email.

It is never necessary. 

Anyone asking for a password has bad intentions.

Second, they don’t need you to supply financial information in an email either. 

StubHub has a secure payment processing method.

It handles financial information. 

Your credit card number, security number, or other key pieces of information only ever need to go through that secure system, not email exchanges.

#5 Unreasonable Fees

The last scam is actually the hardest to deal with. 

Ticket sellers on StubHub get to set their own prices.

They also get to itemize how those prices are calculated.

In the form of a scam, a seller will set a competitive ticket price. 

You see that, so you jump in and try to buy these good tickets. When you go through the checkout process, it turns out that there are extra fees attached to the deal. 

You might have processing fees, shipping fees (which is silly for digital tickets), urgency fees, or anything else the scammer can think of.

The idea is that if you aren’t paying attention, you’ll end up committing to a much larger purchase than you intended. 

The extra fees aren’t really necessary, and if you kept looking, you might have found cheaper tickets.

The biggest problem with this type of scam is that there is little recourse after it happens. 

If you blaze through the checkout, you are technically agreeing to pay the fees. 

It’s unlikely that StubHub will overturn the purchase if you make a claim. 

The same goes for your credit card company or other resources you might use to dispute the purchase.

The only real solution here is to keep your guard up. 

Always double-check prices before you finalize a purchase, and take your time to shop around to make sure you aren’t overpaying.

What Can You Do About Scams on StubHub? (4 Things)

Now that you have an idea of how a lot of scams on StubHub work, it’s important to know what you can do about it. 

Depending on the circumstances, you have a few options. 

Your best options are laid out below.

#1 StubHub Support

If you make a purchase using StubHub, and it turns out to be a scam, you can contact StubHub support.

Ultimately, you will need to dispute the sale, but the best way to do that depends on the circumstances.

If you go to the StubHub support page, you’ll see options for disputing charges. 

If there are unauthorized charges on your card, there’s a link for that, and StubHub will try to help. 

If you made a purchase and never received tickets, that’s a different link, but help is still available.

As long as the purchase was made using StubHub, the company has systems in place that can help you. 

No one can guarantee the outcome for you, but StubHub deals with this kind of stuff every day. 

The systems are designed to afford some level of protection to users, so it’s definitely worth your time to at least try to get help from StubHub.

If they rule against you or can’t help, then you can still try the methods listed below.

#2 Credit Card Company

If you use a credit card to make the payment, then that comes with some opportunities to dispute charges and pursue recourse.

Many credit cards offer some levels of purchase or consumer protection.

So, you can contact the credit card company and explain the situation.

Let’s use an example where you buy tickets but they never show up. 

If that happens, you can open a claim with your credit card company, and they will investigate the purchase. There’s a good chance that they will coordinate directly with StubHub.

Ultimately, if they find that you were defrauded, they can issue a refund.

In fact, they can even reverse a payment (to some extent). 

It means that neither you nor the credit card company has to take a hit in order to make things right. 

Instead, the scammer loses the money they thought they gained from you.

Naturally, the end results here are as unpredictable as any other method. 

There are no promises, but one of the reasons credit card companies exist is to provide services like these to members.

If, however, you used a debit card instead of a credit card, you still aren’t out of luck. 

Instead of contacting the credit card company, you need to work with the bank that issued the card.

Ultimately, the experience will be similar.

#3 Report Fraud

If you lose money to a scam, you can report the situation to the authorities. 

Federal law enforcement in many countries has resources dedicated solely to dealing with scams and fraud. 

You can also report these issues to your state or local government.

There are a lot of options.

If you do report a scam, you will likely have to fill out an online form.

You may also be contacted for additional details.

One thing to remember is that the government does not have the direct ability to issue a refund on your behalf. 

Only the financial institutions have that capability. 

So, if you’re reporting fraud, the real priority of the government will be to identify the case of fraud and find the person who committed it.

Whether or not you actually get your money back is a secondary concern.

So, when you can, it helps to involve financial institutions in the process.

#4 Virtual Cards

You can avoid a lot of problems by using virtual cards.

These are things like Payoneer or Venmo. 

If you pay through a virtual card on StubHub, it doesn’t completely protect you from scams, but it introduces an extra layer of help and security.

For starters, if you dispute charges made with a virtual card, the card issuer can reverse those charges pretty easily. 

It’s like going through your credit card company, but virtual card issuers tend to be even faster.

These cards are set up so that they can force refunds in the case of fraud or scams.

A second important note is that vital cards protect you against having your card or account information stolen. 

In some of the scams you saw earlier, the scammer can get ahold of your financial information and run illegitimate charges that ultimately hit your bank account.

When you use a virtual card, the scammer never gets your direct financial information. 

Instead, they get info for the virtual card.

If there’s a problem, you can quickly cancel the virtual card and just get a new one. 

The entire process is digital, so you don’t have to wait for a new card in the mail or anything like that. 

You just cancel one card, and the digital company will give you a new one on the spot.

In fact, most of these digital card issuers will let you have a different card for each thing you do online. 

So, you can have a card dedicated solely to StubHub. 

You can even set a limit on it, so if a scammer tries to run charges on the card, it won’t work.