People wait outside of Dallas Stadium holding signs reading World Cup tickets wanted during a FIFA World Cup game between the Netherlands and Japan on Sunday.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News
Imagine spending nearly $2,000 on World Cup tickets seven months ago, being told you won’t have the tickets until game day and then, three days before the match, being told the tickets do not exist.
That’s the fate of Austin’s Majda Praiz, whose ticketing debacle represents the latest in a seemingly countless litany of alleged ticketing “scams” in the lead-up to the first men’s World Cup on U.S. soil in 32 years.
The monthslong ticketing maelstrom — defined by fans balking over high prices, a convoluted process and changing color-coded stadium seating maps — is juxtaposed this week alongside the unbridled pageantry and thrilling games playing out in 11 U.S. cities, including Arlington. A striking split-screen of controversy and competition.
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“Unfortunately, I’ve been hearing a lot of people, anecdotally, telling me they’ve been having problems with StubHub and, to be fair, with a lot of these third-party sites,” said Danny Navarro, a Virginia-based social media influencer known as TravelFutbalFan, who provides followers with World Cup travel tips. “The main problem arises from the fact FIFA is and has not done a good job informing folks that all these tickets need to be processed in the FIFA ticketing ecosystem. These third-party resale sites are just merely processing payment. People don’t know that. And because FIFA did a terrible job communicating that that was the process, that’s why you have a lot of people so confused.”
Related: Ticket prices for Wednesday’s World Cup England-Croatia game
Navarro, who has more than 100,000 followers on his social media platforms, said what Praiz has encountered has played out with countless ticket buyers. For every person he’s has tried to help and inform, “there’s five or 10 more people with the same problem, a classic case of Whac-A-Mole.”
A native of Croatia, Praiz on Dec. 6 bought two tickets for $1,671.50 on ticketing platform StubHub for Wednesday’s Croatia-England group stage match at Dallas Stadium, planning to drive up to Arlington from her home in Austin. She planned her entire summer around going to the highly anticipated match.
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But she said StubHub told her that she wouldn’t have the digital tickets in her possession until noon the day of the game, just three hours before the highly anticipated match kicked off.
She waited and waited. Months elapsed. Anxiety grew.
‘Did you sell me something you do not have?’
StubHub repeatedly told her FIFA was not releasing tickets until the day of the game. She called StubHub a few times and said she was told explicitly, “You’re going to get the tickets.”
Still, she heard and read about the torrent of criticism surrounding the ticketing process, most of which targeted FIFA, the governing body that controls the entire ticketing process for this World Cup. She jumped on Reddit forums to read about ticketing horror stories fans shared about buying tickets on secondary market platforms like StubHub.
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Over the weekend, StubHub emailed her with this message, which she shared with The News: “We need to replace your tickets. The seller can’t deliver your original tickets … We found you new tickets at no extra cost.”
Screen shots of emails that Majda Praiz received from StubHub after buying World Cup tickets earlier this year. Despite claims that her tickets were secured, she did not get access to this week’s Croatia-England game in Dallas through the ticket resale platform.
Courtesy Majda Praiz
She called StubHub and said she was told: “ ‘We are updating the entire time, the tickets will show up.’ And I’m asking the person, ‘Are you guaranteeing 100% I’m going to have the ticket?’ She’s like, ‘Yes, by Tuesday your tickets will be there. Like, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s just the system.’ ”
Then comes this email from StubHub: “Replacement tickets unavailable. To make this right, you can request a full refund.”
Back on the phone with StubHub, she said the company tried to dodge and elude her direct questions like Lionel Messi dribbling by defenders, she posed a pointed question to the customer service representative.
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“Do you have my tickets?” Praiz asked. “Can you guarantee I’m getting the tickets?”
“No,” she said she was told.
“Did you sell me something that you do not have?” Praiz asked.
The customer service rep hemmed and hawed, she said.
“It’s a yes or no question — did you sell me something that you do not have?” Praiz said she repeated.
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“Yeah, but we’re trying,” Praiz said she was told.
‘Only way to get tickets is through FIFA’
At that point she demanded and was given a refund. With the game drawing ever closer, prices escalating and available tickets dwindling, she then resorted to what she saw as her only remaining option: Spending $2,500 for two category 3 tickets — the same pricing category she earlier had paid $1,600 for tickets — but this time through FIFA.
That price is nearly $1,000 more than what she had originally paid to StubHub for the same type of tickets.
When The News detailed Praiz’s ordeal to StubHub in an email and asked for an explanation, StubHub responded with a statement that read: “We understand that many fans have invested significant time, money, and excitement into attending the World Cup.
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“If you’d be open to sharing the specific order and contact info of this person you’re in communication with for your story, we can share that with our team who is handling these cases directly to identify impacted orders, secure replacement tickets or refunds.”
The News declined to share Praiz’s personal information with StubHub.
World Cup ticketing backlash has been simmering for months. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently launched an investigation into FIFA.
For months, FIFA has stressed that its Resale/Exchange Marketplace is the only secure channel for reselling tickets. Tickets are also available through third-party resale sites such as SeatGeek and StubHub, but they cannot guarantee a resale ticket is legitimate in the same way FIFA’s resale market can.
“Ticketing makes me very nervous,” Dan Hunt, co-chair of the North Texas World Cup Organizing Committee, told The News in December. “I don’t want patrons to be taken advantage of. There’s not a lot of knowledge out there. I don’t want people to be taken advantage of. That’s a critical story you have to start telling. It’s a big one.”
Andy Swift, secretary of the Board of Directors for the North Texas World Cup Organizing Committee, echoed that sentiment, saying during a news conference months ago that he recommends “extreme caution” when purchasing tickets outside FIFA’s official site.
University Park’s Michael Peticolas, who has purchased tickets for every World Cup since 2006, said, “If I’m buying from FIFA, I know it will be a legit ticket. If I’m buying from a broker, I’m worried. I just don’t know if it’s an official ticket or not.”
As for Praiz, she is excited to attend Wednesday’s match.
Asked what message her ordeal sends to potential ticket buyers, Praiz said, “Obviously, this is a company that either is looking to scam people, or maybe they made a deal with FIFA, and then FIFA didn’t deliver. But definitely do not trust them. Now I know that the only way to get tickets is through FIFA.”