Susan Burke was elated when Beyoncé announced she would play a concert near Washington, D.C., in July.
She bought three tickets on StubHub for herself and her friends. Soon enough, she saw better seats in the front row of the section. It was an easy call, she thought: She'll just buy the new ones and sell her old ones.
After all, StubHub's website clearly states: "Listing tickets on StubHub is easy and free!" And this is Beyoncé, she figured.
"StubHub says that it's easy to relist tickets, so I'll just do that," Burke says. "It'll be no issue!"
Turns out, there was actually a major issue: Her tickets just weren't showing up when she searched for them, no matter how many times she looked for them.
And that's how Burke stumbled upon a filter that many others are also discovering on StubHub: It's called "Recommended Tickets."
The filter dramatically cuts the number of listings that are initially shown to buyers, preventing them from seeing all the available tickets for an event. It is on by default, but tucked away under a "Filters" section at the top, making it easy to miss for many users.
So anyone trying to buy tickets to Beyoncé's July 4th concert in Maryland's Northwest Stadium — the same ones that Burke was trying to sell — can only see fewer than 400 seats available on StubHub as of late Tuesday. Getting off the filter, however, shows over 1,000 available tickets.
It's similar for other events, whether it's sports games or concerts, as NPR verified when clicking on a random sampling of listings.
StubHub blames "algorithms" when sellers ask why
For sellers like Burke, that can be infuriating. Sellers are alerted that their tickets are being hidden with a message: "Your listing is currently hidden by active filters." StubHub provides a little additional information in another page that says, "Your listing is hidden by the 'Recommended' filter. Adjust pricing or details for better visibility."
But they question whether buyers are also made aware that they need to toggle off the feature to see all the results.
NPR talked to over half a dozen users who have complained in forums like Reddit, where dozens of threads are devoted to the subject.
Sellers who spoke to NPR say what compounds their frustration is that StubHub's customer service team often attributes the website's "algorithms" as one of the reasons why their tickets don't show.
Meanwhile, Burke says she was told that all she had to do was lower the price to get her ticket to show up — a step she was reluctant to take.
Like others who talked to NPR, she wondered: Shouldn't she determine the price based on how she valued the quality of her seats and make her own choices to see whether they would actually sell?
StubHub calls the filter the 'best experience' for fans
In an email to NPR, StubHub says the filter, introduced in late 2022, is intended to "give fans the best experience when browsing for tickets" by showing them only the "lowest priced and best tickets by section," taking into account factors such as the row or extra features.
Despite labeling the "Recommended Tickets" as a "Popular Feature" in its website, StubHub does not advertise the feature prominently.
The feature stumped even a retired professional ticket broker in Texas who has relied on platforms such as StubHub during his career. He declined to be identified by name because he wants to preserve his ties to the business since he still occasionally sells and buys tickets.
He once tried to sell tickets to a "Hamilton" production, but like Burke, he couldn't find the tickets he was trying to sell on StubHub — and that's how he too discovered the filter for the first time.
He's struggling to understand why StubHub favors some tickets over others.
"I know how to price tickets because I've done it for so long," he says. "I had these tickets that were gorgeous tickets, gorgeous seats, and I priced them very reasonably. But StubHub buried my seats."
"It makes no business sense to me," he adds. "Those are tickets they can't sell because no one knows to look for them."
One seller sold tickets cheaper than he would have liked
Jamie Dawson McDowell, who works at a children's museum in Indiana and does voice-over work, is a frequent buyer and seller on StubHub.
He says he discovered the filter when he noticed that some of his tickets were not showing up a few years ago.
Dawson McDowell still can't figure out why the filter prefers some tickets over others, but he now finds himself having to more frequently monitor his listings, and there are times he says he's had to sell tickets very cheaply just to get them to show up.
He finds it upsetting.
"It's just supposed to be a marketplace for you to sell your tickets," he says. "It does make you wonder what the motivation is, and I'm not certain what that would be, because if you're StubHub, I would think selling a ticket is selling a ticket."
Ticket sites have been under the microscope lately
Ticket marketplaces such as Ticketmaster and StubHub have previously sparked popular outrage, as well as lawsuits. Ticketmaster, for example, came under intense pressure over a botched sales process for Taylor Swift tickets over a couple of years ago, although the company has strongly defended itself.
StubHub, which focuses on ticket resales, has not been immune.
Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the ticket provider last year, accusing it of "deceptive pricing" by advertising a low price at first and then tacking on a myriad of fees that makes the final price "vastly higher" during the checkout process.
Along the way, the lawsuit states that StubHub uses tactics like using a countdown clock that "creates a false sense of urgency" for users to buy tickets or risk losing them.
Schwalb and his team also argue that StubHub intentionally makes it harder to find the toggle that allows users to see the final price up front. StubHub has strongly denied the accusations and said it would defend itself against the lawsuit.
Not all buyers may be aware of the filter
When it comes to the "Recommended Tickets" filter, StubHub tells NPR in an email that it "can be toggled off at any point"
But Dawson McDowell, like all the sellers who spoke to NPR, believes many buyers in fact don't know about the filter because he himself was at first unaware of it despite using the site often.
He's had to help friends who don't realize it is automatically turned on and that they are not seeing all the available tickets.
"if you're not an avid user of StubHub, it's frustrating," he says. "It just feels deceitful in a way."
For sellers, it's especially frustrating. Like Susan Burke from Washington D.C., who still hasn't sold her tickets. She's just hoping to get back the approximately $1,000 that she paid — but is preparing herself to take a loss if she needs to.
But first, she'd like to give her tickets a chance to sell by having them actually show up when potential buyers search for them. Because they are there. They're just not easy to find.
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