Wrigley Field

Cubs Fan Strikes Out With StubHub Seats

The fan says he was told pricey seats were next to each other, but they weren’t

Die-hard Cubs fan Javier Ortega said he was thrown a curveball when he bought two pricey tickets from StubHub for seats that were supposed to be next to each other. Instead, Ortega found himself sitting alone, separated from his friend, who was there to experience her very first Cubs game.

"My plan was to bring a friend. It was her first time ever at Wrigley, so I wanted her to experience the whole Wrigley Field Cubs game." Ortega recalled.

With four seats between them, what was supposed to be a fun night quickly ran afoul.

“We just couldn’t talk to each other,” Ortega said. “I had a different vision of us watching the game together.”

Ortega’s problem started last month on StubHub, where he bought two tickets for $249 for a Cubs v. Mets game. But before he clicked purchase, he noticed something odd. The seats were listed together, but numbered 104 and 6. So he called StubHub for clarification.

“They told me they were together. I questioned that a couple of times and they still told me they were together,” Ortega said.

Ortega put his trust in the popular ticket re-seller and decided to buy the tickets. It was a purchase he regretted moments after he set foot inside the ballpark.

“We asked the usher to walk us to our seats and even he was confused,” Ortega said. “I kept saying no these seats were together and he kept telling me no they were not.”

The seats should have been together, according to StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee. The policy tells buyers “if you buy two or more tickets from a listing, they’re guaranteed to be next to each other!” The company also tells sellers “all of your seats in your listing must be together (consecutive).”

The next morning, Ortega called StubHub for a refund. Instead Ortega said they blamed him for the mistake.

“I asked for a refund and they told me they couldn’t give me a refund because I had already used the tickets,” Ortega told NBC 5 Responds. “You should have called us at that moment, from inside Wrigley. I said, it’s a 7:30 game. It’s loud. You want me to call StubHub? And he’s like, ‘Yeah, you should have done that.’”

Countless phone calls later, StubHub admitted the seats were not together but still refused a full refund. That’s when Ortega reached out to NBC 5 Responds.

“I mean you guys called me within like 30 minutes and that was awesome,” Ortega said.

When asked why, contrary to its own policy, two seats not together where sold together, a spokesperson for StubHub said the issue was caused by a system error that is now fixed.

“The buyer was right to contact our team before the game and the issue should have been fixed then as all buyers and sellers are protected by our FanProtect Guarantee,” the spokesperson said.

StubHub then apologized to Ortega and gave him a full refund.

“If this happened to me it could happen to someone else. So I wanted to make sure that that didn’t happen to anyone else.,” Ortega told NBC 5 Responds.

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