Related: Ticket prices for Wednesday’s World Cup England-Croatia game<\/a><\/p>\nNavarro, who has more than 100,000 followers on his social media platforms, said what Praiz has encountered has played out with countless ticket buyers.\u00a0For every person he\u2019s has tried to help and inform, \u201cthere\u2019s five or 10 more people with the same problem, a classic case of Whac-A-Mole.\u201d<\/p>\n
A native of Croatia, Praiz on Dec. 6 bought two tickets for $1,671.50 on ticketing platform StubHub for Wednesday\u2019s Croatia-England group stage match at Dallas\u00a0Stadium, planning to drive up to Arlington from her home in Austin. She planned her entire summer around going to the highly anticipated match.<\/p>\n
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But she said StubHub told her that she wouldn\u2019t have the digital tickets in her possession until noon the day of the game, just three hours before the highly anticipated match kicked off.<\/p>\n
She waited and waited. Months elapsed. Anxiety grew.<\/p>\n
\u2018Did you sell me something you do not have?\u2019<\/p>\n
StubHub repeatedly told her\u00a0FIFA was not releasing tickets until the day of the game. She called StubHub a few times and said she was told explicitly, \u201cYou\u2019re going to get the tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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Over the weekend, StubHub emailed her with this message, which she shared with The News: \u201cWe need to replace your tickets. The seller can\u2019t deliver your original tickets \u2026 We found you new tickets at no extra cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
Courtesy Majda Praiz<\/p>\n
She called StubHub and said she was told: \u201c \u2018We are updating the entire time, the tickets will show up.\u2019\u00a0 And I\u2019m asking the person, \u2018Are you guaranteeing 100% I\u2019m going to have the ticket?\u2019\u00a0 She\u2019s like, ‘Yes, by Tuesday your tickets will be there. Like, ‘Don\u2019t worry about it, it\u2019s just the system.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Then comes this email from StubHub: \u201cReplacement tickets unavailable. To make this right, you can request a full refund.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDo you have my tickets?\u201d Praiz asked. \u201cCan you guarantee I\u2019m getting the tickets?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d she said she was told.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you sell me something that you do not have?\u201d Praiz asked.<\/p>\n
The customer service rep hemmed and hawed, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a yes or no question\u00a0\u2014 did you sell me something that you do not have?\u201d Praiz said she repeated.<\/p>\n
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\u201cYeah, but we\u2019re trying,\u201d Praiz said she was told.<\/p>\n
\u2018Only way to get tickets is through\u00a0FIFA\u2019<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u2014 the same pricing category she earlier had paid $1,600 for tickets\u00a0\u2014 but this time through\u00a0FIFA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That price is nearly $1,000 more than what she had originally paid to StubHub for the same type of tickets.<\/p>\n
When The News detailed Praiz\u2019s ordeal to StubHub in an email and asked for an explanation, StubHub responded with a statement that read: \u201cWe understand that many fans have invested significant time, money, and excitement into attending the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf you\u2019d be open to sharing the specific order and contact info of this person you\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The News declined to share Praiz’s personal information with StubHub.<\/p>\n
World Cup ticketing backlash has been simmering for months. Texas Attorney General Ken\u00a0Paxton recently launched an investigation<\/a> into FIFA.<\/p>\nFor 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\u2019s resale market can.<\/p>\n
\u201cTicketing makes me very nervous,\u201d Dan Hunt, co-chair of the North Texas World Cup Organizing Committee, told The News in December. \u201cI don\u2019t want patrons to be taken advantage of. There\u2019s not a lot of knowledge out there. I don\u2019t want people to be taken advantage of. That\u2019s a critical story you have to start telling. It\u2019s a big one.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cextreme caution\u201d when purchasing tickets outside\u00a0FIFA\u2019s official site.<\/p>\n
University Park\u2019s\u00a0Michael\u00a0Peticolas, who has purchased tickets for every World Cup since 2006, said, \u201cIf I\u2019m buying from FIFA, I know it will be a legit ticket. If I\u2019m buying from a broker, I\u2019m worried. I just don\u2019t know if it\u2019s an official ticket or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Praiz, she is excited to attend\u00a0Wednesday’s match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked what message her ordeal sends to potential ticket buyers, Praiz said, \u201cObviously, this is a company that either is looking to scam people, or maybe they made a deal with\u00a0FIFA, and then FIFA didn\u2019t deliver. But definitely do not trust them. Now I know that the only way to get tickets is through FIFA.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People wait outside of Dallas Stadium holding signs reading World Cup tickets wanted during a FIFA World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-338989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}