The attorney general of Washington D.C. filed a lawsuit against American ticket resale platform StubHub for alleged “drip pricing” (via Pitchfork). 

StubHub is an American third-party ticket resale and exchange platform which allows consumers to sell and buy tickets for all types of ticketed events. They are currently the world’s most popular platform for ticket resale. 

“Drip Pricing” is a process in which during checkout the platform allegedly adds more and more unexplained fees, that are allegedly just mark-ups connected to supply and demand, onto the original price in order to allegedly make a profit. The attorney general also claims that StubHub adds a timer to allegedly pressure the consumer during this checkout process. 

This “drip pricing” allegedly goes against Washington D.C.’s consumer protection laws as it pressures consumers into paying unnecessary fees and prevents consumers from comparing StubHub prices to other third party sites. 

In 2014 StubHub did attempt to uphold a transparent pricing system, this model was retired in 2015 for the pricing system they have now. The attorney general claims that this is because they allegedly make more of a profit with “drip pricing”. The website still has places where consumers can see the final prices before they check out but the prices are allegedly in inconvenient and hard to find places.