The ticket resale platform has been hit with two $10,000 fines for allegedly selling tickets above face value and facilitating a transaction without having proof of the original price, failing to comply with the province's recent legislation which prohibits reselling tickets above their original value.
Ontario is continuing its crackdown on ticket resales.
The Ontario government has fined the ticket resale platform StubHub $20,000 for acting in non-compliance of the province's Ticket Sales Act. The Ontario Consumer Beware List shows that StubHub has been hit with two fines, each worth $10,000, for allegedly "making a ticket available for sale above face value" and "facilitating a transaction without having proof of the original price."
Although StubHub was only fined on Sept. 9, it is one of 27 resale websites that were investigated by the Ontario government over the summer for possible non-compliance with the new Bill 97. Earlier this month, SeatGeek was fined $25,000 for allegedly making "a ticket available or facilitating the sale of a ticket [that] exceeded the resale price cap," failing to disclose the total price of a ticket when purchased from the primary seller and facilitating a "sale without proof of total price when purchased from primary seller."
StubHub was added to the Consumer Beware List around the same time as SeatGeek, but was not yet fined. Jack Sterne, a spokesperson from StubHub, says the platform is "upholding our responsibility as best we can, despite the law’s silence on some core issues, including how a seller should verify the original price of a ticket. The government has acknowledged this gap and indicated that there is a need for implementation guidance. We will continue to engage in productive conversation to address these matters while we defend our rights through the appeals process."
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According to reports by The Canadian Press, the platform has said that some ticket types like season packages do not contain pricing information, and that resellers can also doctor receipts to fake list prices and sell tickets at higher prices. StubHub says it needs data from the original ticketing platform to be able to verify prices and resultantly conform with local laws.
In June, just ahead of the World Cup, the province increased the maximum penalty for non-compliance from $10,000 to $25,000. The province has explained that businesses are added to the Consumer Beware List if they "fail to respond to consumer complaints or violate provincial consumer protection laws," specifically "in relation to the Consumer Protection Act or other acts of the ministry."
