I had purchased 4 tickets to the Buffalo Bills vs. New England Patriots game for the October 12th game. These tickets were purchased for row 3 sections 143 in the lower end zone (which were great seats) for a total of $521.48, approximately $130.37 per ticket.

Excited for an away game, my family and myself then drove 9 hours up to Buffalo NY for the weekend to attend the game on Sunday. When we arrived at the gate our tickets that we purchased from Stubhub would not scan.

Frustrated and confused I immediately called Stubhub offices to see what we going on, the customer service representative then notified me that the seller of the original tickets had sold multiple sets of tickets and these would not scan. She told me that we would get a full refund on the tickets right away and she apologized for the inconvenience.

This was good customer service but more importantly this was not getting my family or myself into the game, which we drove 9 hours to watch. The customer service rep then gave me clear directions to go up to the Buffalo Bills Stadium (Ralph Wilson Stadium) ticket window and purchase 4 tickets directly from the stadium and then proceed to email in my ticket receipts along with the “customer denied entry claim sheet” when I arrived home to customer service and they would reimburse me for my tickets. At this time I’m extremely frustrated and we had already missed the entire first quarter of football, just wanting a simple resolution I followed her instructions exactly.


I followed her directions and purchased 4 tickets out of pocket from the stadium ticket window, which were in section 238 row 10 seats 12-15 for $215 each for a total of $860.00. These tickets were a total of $338.52 more than what we originally purchased and they were far worse seats. Still angry and frustrated we were just happy to get into the game after all of that traveling and just wanted this awful experience to be over, so we attended the game for the final 3 quarters.

When I arrived home I sent in my “customer denied entry claim,” and waited for a response…, which never happened. I then called into customer service and explained the situation again and was told rudely by the customer service rep that I was initially instructed improperly. She told me without apology that the original customer service rep informed me improperly and that was not procedure, Stubhub customer service rep’s are not supposed to instruct customers to purchase non-Stubhub tickets because their policy does not allow for the difference to be reimbursed. This would have been helpful when I was denied entry but I had already purchased the tickets when following her specific and direct instructions.

I was then told by this customer service rep that there is no way that the first customer service rep could possibly instruct me to do this because again…….it was completely off policy for her to instruct me to buy additional tickets. So I then asked this the rep to please review the recording of the initial phone call so she cannot continue to call me a liar. The rep put me on hold pretending to listen to the call and then took me off hold and informed me that while she was listening to the recording she didn’t hear any instructions to have me purchase additional tickets. I then asked her if I could listen to the tape with her, that was shot down with her telling me “no that is against policy.” Then frustrated once again I asked to be transferred to someone that was more helpful, that was again shot down with her telling me that she was the only rep with authority to help me on the “executive customer level.” I told her thank you for your time but I’m going to call back if I’m not transferred, so I then had to call back.

At this point (after being on the phone for 1.5 hours) I called back and got in touch with another customer service rep that I then had to explain the entire situation to. She told me to scan in the tickets that I had to purchase along with the receipt and she would give me a Stubhub credit. Although a credit to Stubhub wasn’t much help seeing as I’ll never do business again with them after this incident, it seemed like I didn’t have any more options. I scanned my tickets and receipt in and waited for the call back within 24 hours that I was promised.

Now this is 7 days later and I have zero reimbursement and zero call back from any customer service. I called back into Stubhub for a third time and reach another Stubhub customer service rep who then proceeded to tell me there was nothing he could do and it was in the hands of “executive claims” and they would be getting back to me.

There still has been zero resolution to my issue and I have not received any call backs or any emails.

I went into the office the following day and pulled up the documents on how much money we have spent (as a company) on tickets through the company Stubhub account for customers and company events in the past two years. The total was $67,058.00.

Not only have they lost me as a customer, but I have no changed my company’s policy to only allow purchases of sporting/event tickets to be done through Ticketmaster only.

This is a clear-cut example of how important customer service can be. Not only have they lost my business, my families business and my companies business – but also now I will share my Stubhub experience with all of my customers and all of my friends and never advise them to do business with a dishonest company such as Stubhub.

Ryan Garofano
[email protected]
401-741-8361©