I’ve heard back from a senior supervisor of executive customer care at StubHub. Those who stop by frequently might remember we had three spring training tickets stolen a week before we left town.
And now, two months after we began e-mailing and calling StubHub to try and replace the stolen tickets before we got to Florida, this comment was made to my March 14th post about getting into the ballgame, with no help from StubHub:
My name is Jennifer Norberg and I’m the Sr. Supervisor of StubHub Executive Customer Care. I read this post and would like to sincerely apologize for your StubHub experience.
As StubHub is a secondary ticket marketplace, we are not a ticket seller and therefore we hold no ticket inventory of our own. We instruct our buyers to treat their tickets as if they are cash and keep them in a safe, secure place until they’re ready to use them. In the situation that tickets are lost, damaged, or stolen, we’ll do our best to try and obtain reprints from the ticket seller. That said however, the seller may not be able to obtain reprints and is under no obligation to do so. Unfortunately most tickets are irreplaceable and for that reason, we cannot guarantee reprints.
For more information, you are welcome to review our Buyer Q & A:
http://www.stubhub.com/help-top-questions-buyer/#lost-damaged
I regret that we were not able to resolve your situation as we would have liked. Our goal is to get our customers to their events and we never want a customer to go away empty handed. If you are interested in discussing this, I’d like the opportunity to address any questions or concerns you may have had regarding StubHub and our policies. I’d also like the opportunity to try and turn this situation around if at all possible. I can be reached via email at …
Two months later, what to say? First, thanks for the apology, I guess. It grates a little bit to be lectured on keeping the tickets safe – we’d had them shipped to my wife’s office to be safe. But at some point they need to be transported, right?
After all, had we left them locked safely in a drawer at work they would have been of little use once we got to Florida. It wasn’t like she left her backpack out on the street – on March 5th, as she went quickly in and out of day care in about two minutes’ time, the window of our car was smashed and her pack was grabbed by a guy who jumped into a car and drove off, for chrissake. (It was caught on security camera, which was offered to the Oakland police, but as their officers have been getting shot lately, our backpack wasn’t exactly a high priority.)
After that, my wife went into overdrive. As well as personal stuff (such as a $180 jacket) she lost her wallet, with drivers’ license, cash, her checkbook, her cell phone, and the tickets.
While both doing our jobs, and with everything we had going on getting ready to get out of town, we both hit the phones and ran around like crazy to get it all fixed. She was especially stressed, trying to pull it all together, in part because she knew I was a bit freaked thinking that thieves now had our address and tickets that indicated we were leaving town. Suddenly, leaving the place empty for nine days didn’t seem like such a hot idea to me, as it might be far emptier when we got back, yeah?
But you know what? Some companies were great.
For instance, I called the credit card company, and they shipped replacement cards to us. Express. At no cost to us. We had them the next day.
Her cell phone company shipped her a replacement cell phone, too. Our insurer sent a truck the same day to replace the broken rear window of our car.
The bank was great about shutting things down, and even the Department of Motor Vehicles was helpful in getting a new driver’s license. Remember, you need photo ID to get on a plane. So she got a temporary license and was able to use an expired drivers license with a photo and explain about the stolen ID. It took a little longer, but on march 11th, we made our flights.
Now consider what happened with StubHub. Between us, in the 6 days between March 5th and 11th, my wife and I spent several hours on the phone and emailing them. We spent more time with them than we did with everyone else combined. They eventually got the tickets to the ballpark for the Yankees game on March 15th, but I had to go empty-handed to the Pirates game on March 12th.
The call center reps answering their phones were of little help. They have canned answers, and their response was essentially reactive, rather than proactive.
If they are going to broker tickets for ball clubs, couldn’t they have an expeditor for situations such as this to proactively contact the clubs and say “this guy’s ticket was stolen, we know his section, row, and seat number, please help him out when he gets there?”
Instead, I showed up with a fistful of email printouts, and it was only the kindness of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ticket manager (who complained about StubHub) that got me in the game. I’d bought a great seat, behind the visiting team dugout (as a Twins’ fan) and instead I was sitting a couple sections farther out and back from the field – but I was just happy to be there.
Still, I paid extra for that great ticket by the dugout, so I could be close to the Twins. I think the face value was around $30, plus the StubHub fee, plus the shipping expense – it was somewhere between $40 and $50, if memory serves. So what did I get for the extra I paid, on top of the ticket price?
Considering how much help those other companies gave us, would it be possible for StubHub to maybe have placed a call on my behalf? A little proactivity would have been great.
OmbudsBen 
I’d recommend telling the StubHub rep exactly that. Basically, shit happens – even to the most careful people – and if they take customer service seriously (as opposed to just seeing customers as complainers who need to be dealt with with the minimum of hassle on their part) then they should welcome your insight and use it to improve their approach to the problem of lost or stolen tickets in the future.
Good luck!
What a saga. At the least the great majority of companies you dealt with were responsive. That is heartening.
My experience is that the customer service reps are not empowered to help you. If I’m really upset about something, I write an old fashioned letter (on paper, in an envelope, with a stamp and everything…I’m old school that way) to the CEO of the company. Shockingly, it *almost* always works. Of course, it helps if I tell them exactly what I want from them. Since it’s too late now for them to replace your tickets, think about what you might want, and then write the CEO. Or, write customer service, but CC the CEO. With that paper copy that will go to his or her desk.
Might help. Feels good. Hasn’t *always* worked. Once I got a letter from an expensive French restaurant telling us they were sorry that our food sucked and tasted like it was frozen, and we had to ask for water, that kind of thing, but that was it. I had at least hoped for an invitation to come back on them so they could prove to us that this was not the norm. Who knows, perhaps it was.
Thanks, all three of you. Woo, if I were a bit more caught up I’d be reporting back to you the results of that conversation. J, your letterwriting bit is great; I hope you keep the correspondence, along with notes on the outcomes — it woudl make for great posts, no? Anhinga, you’re quite right, and we were grateful for the help for the others.
Odd week at work. Trouble in another quarter, which I helped alleviate, but that meant playing catch up elsewhere. One of those weeks where I was adding items to the bottom of the to-do list faster than I was crossing them off the top.
I woke up early this morning (Saturday) and realized a few things I never got to — crap. Fortunately, I got the cashier’s check for the refinancing of our mortgage (any items involving dollar amounts with crooked numbers to the left of the comma really ought to command one’s attention, unless you’re a Rockefeller, in which case one’s attention is more focused another comma farther to the left). So hopefully the refi will happen next week.
All week long I had ideas for blog posts. Even jotted down notes which I doubtless left at the office. (Sigh.)
Anyway–I did hear back from StubHub. I’ll reproduce the email here directly.
Here is the email I got:
I really meant to call her last week — problem-solving meant dealing with a couple unfamiliar conundrums at work. For some reason the gears of my brain were not shifting fluidly; a couple times I was solving consistency problems and felt as if the mental transmission had more peanut butter than transmission fluid …
For what little bit it’s worth, Jennifer works in SF, thus here in the bay area, and the problem with my phone number is that two digits in the area code are switched. The area code for the east bay is 510, not 501 …
It appears this company might be going the extra mile. Will be anxious to hear how the phone call goes.
So you found some great tickets on StubHub and they sent them to you as promised. YOU lost them (under no fault of your own, but also surely under no fault of StubHub’s), and now you want StubHub to replace them? Everyone knows to treat event tickets like gold, as they are almost impossible to replace. The fact is that you didn’t keep the tickets safe ENOUGH. Again, not your fault you were robbed, but seriously… you can’t expect StubHub to replace your tickets. When it comes down to it, you lost them. And of course your credit cards were replaced right away, credit card companies don’t make money off of you if you don’t have a credit card in hand. It surely sucks you didn’t get to use your tickets, but that is in no way StubHub’s fault.
Chris.
Chris, you seem pretty unclear on the concept. StubHub is a business, and like any other business is interested in customer satisfaction. Before you spout off on other people’s web sites, you ought to realize that.
There is virtually no cost to StubHub to replace the tickets, and only the advantage of a satisfied customer, who could easily tell others of the experience and create new satisfied customers. The reason to go to a legitimate business rather than scalpers for tickets is that you have recourse in situations such as this. I paid for their service, and they want to make good on it.
If you’d read the next post before ranting in SELF-IMPORTANT capital letters, you’d see that StubHub agrees with me, not you–their customer care executive told me that their phone representative handled our situation wrong.
As StubHub is interested in repeat business, they want to see me get the use of the service they provide. StubHub seems a good bit clearer on the concept than your rant indicates, because they got the big picture, took the long view, and followed up.
You, on the other hand, apparently spend time trolling the web looking for places to be disagreeable. I heartily invite you to do it elsewhere.
Ben, I apologize if my previous response was harshly disagreeable. For starters I don’t “troll” the web looking for places to rant. I was actually doing some background research on StubHub before I decided to use them and came across your blog.
I believe my opinions are stemming from this widely accepted attitude among consumers and business that “the customer is always right”. The customer is not always right, yet the complainers and whiners always seem to get their way in the end. Many people know this and exploit it, and business stands back and lets it happen.
I read your blog entries, including the follow ups, and I feel that StubHub did everything they promised they would do within the initial transaction. You wanted great tickets, they provided them to you, and that is what they were paid for. I admit, it would have been great and EXCEPTIONAL (in self-important caps 🙂 ) service if they replaced your tickets for you, or made a phone call to the team after you lost them. BUT that would have been going over and beyond their original obligations and StubHub not doing that did not give you the justification to talk negative about them in the manner you did and essentially tarnish their reputation by doing so. They did everything you both originally agreed they would do.
I’m a huge fan of customer service and rectifying a situation to the customers satisfaction IF the company was actually in the wrong. I do agree with you in the fact that if it took two months to get a copy and pasted apology, that isn’t right. Simple prompt responses goes a long way in customer service.
Chris.
Chris, we seem to have found some common ground at least, this go-round.
For starters, I think it’s extraneous to assign any blame to the theft (per your first comment). Of course there is no blame on either side (Stubhub or us) for some crackhead smashing the window of our car and stealing my wife’s backpack.
This is a minor aside, but worth making–you’ve spoken twice now about the “great” ticket I got; I actually didn’t get the use of that ticket. I bought a ticket (face value around $28) behind the visiting team dugout to see my team and did *not* get to use it, even though I paid well over the ticket price ($42.75).
It was only the kindness of the home team’s ticket manager–who asked me to register his disgruntlement with Stubhub, too–that I got into the game. He looked at the email printouts, sighed, and pulled a ticket out of his own pocket.
I posted this way in part to respect his wishes and thank him for his kindness.
So I paid about 150% of face value for that ticket; what I am saying is that if Stubhub is going to occupy that nebulous ground between scalpers and the team selling the tickets, they need to consider which they are or want to be.
It seems to me you would have them closer to scalpers. Take the cash and let the buyer beware.
If that’s the case, then I certainly do want to warn others of their caveat emptor attitude.
You feel they are distinct from the credit card and companies, the insurers, who prompty made good on our losses.
I think the difference is the maturity of the business model. Internet ticket brokering is a newer business. Yet ticket theft and loss are not going away.
What happened to me will happen to many others. The original vendors know this, and have systems in place to get us to our seats. When a broker steps in, they also sever us from the original vendor.
If you buy a ticket from the team, the original vendor has a record of me when I come to them talking of its loss–if StubHub wants the money to step in, then they are the only record I have of the original purchase.
If Stubhub wants to continue in the broker role, as they mature they will need systems in place to deal with accident, fire, theft, loss, etc.
To their credit, they seem to be getting ready to expedite these issues and, frankly, it’s smart of them.
Your email address includes “ticketstick.com”; do you work in the industry?
To whom it may concern,
I recently bought 3 tickets for the Chicago Cubs vs. Arizona Diamondbacks on April 28 through StubHub, huge mistake. My two cousins flew in from Indiana for the Cubs game, I waited until 4:07pm Tuesday to purchase tickets, StubHub service says instant tickets. However, they didn’t arrive until 5:24 pm, which was 77 minutes after I purchased them.
During this time I called customer service, and waited and waited, and I was placed on hold 2 separate times for periods of over 20 minutes. That was unacceptable when the game started at 6:40 pm. StubHub service says tickets are guaranteed, and will be sent within minutes, well that never happened. I explained to the agent we had dinner reservations in 18 minutes, so we needed to expedite things. I never heard from her again until after 5pm, at that point we had left our hotel and headed to dinner where we had reservations. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and was put on hold for another 20 minutes. They both told me I needed to go back to my hotel and print out my tickets.
A cab ride would of cost me another $20+ dollars, not to mention no dinner for me, and there goes extra time with my family. The same family I assured we would have no problem getting tickets through StubHub, huge mistake on my part. At this point all I ask for was a refund which was denied, so I had to pay another $30 to a scalper so we could watch the game.
I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in StubHub, the same company I have sold thousands of dollars in tickets for. Also, as a bartender in downtown Phoenix I regularly tell people don’t buy tickets from the scalpers, buy them from StubHub it is safer and more reliable, I will be putting and end to that. I just had people in town from LA, and Colorado and told them to use StubHub. I am not sure I can do that any longer. When there is any sporting event in Phoenix, say Super Bowl, NBA All-Star game, NCAA tournament games, etc…..they stay in downtown Phoenix, and a lot of the time they are looking for tickets. In a good week I tell 30-40 people where to get tickets, in a bad week a couple.
As a seller there has been at least 3 instances where StubHub has called me at 6 am asking about tickets I have sold, yes 6am, my tickets always ship, and in Arizona I have until 5pm to ship. There have also been instances where someone from StubHub is unable to send tickets so they have asked me if I can guarantee tickets, and I always say yes. I am the kind of person that I would think StubHub would want as not only a buyer but as a seller as well.
I have a perfect EBay rating. I have shipped tickets where I have paid extra so my clients can go to a game. I believe in integrity. You guaranteed me tickets, that I didn’t receive in a timely fashion, I spent well over an hour talking to StubHubs support staff to no avail. I also had a “Mellisa” from executive services call me and say she would like to talk to me about my experience, well I finally gave up after leaving 4 messages without a responce.
I have sold plently of tickets through StubHub in what was my first year selling tickets, I now have final four tickets for 2010, I will have NCAA football championship tickets for 2011, not to mention my other season tickets, I am not sure I can sell with them any longer. I am also not sure I can promote StubHub’s services either.
Angry beyond belief