When Sergio Enrique Alvarado Montalvo paid $1,700 on StubHub to surprise his father with World Cup tickets, he imagined an unforgettable Father's Day watching Lionel Messi play. Instead, after spending nearly $6,000 on travel and hotels to fly his parents from Mexico to Dallas, the family was left stranded outside the stadium gates for the Argentina v Austria match.
Just one day before they were set to travel, StubHub abruptly notified Montalvo that the seller could not deliver the tickets, refusing to provide comparable replacements due to soaring prices. They turned up at the stadium anyway, with Montalvo on the phone to StubHub up until an hour before kick-off. “I was so sad and so frustrated, and so filled with rage, anger,” the 45-year-old told the BBC. “It was a mix of feelings that is hard to explain.”
“Hundreds of fans left stranded after StubHub cancels World Cup tickets at last minute due to speculative ticketing.”
Montalvo’s nightmare is part of what industry insiders are calling one of the largest ticketing collapses in history. As the 2026 World Cup sweeps across 16 cities in the US, Canada and Mexico, many fans are finding their bucket lists ruined by last-minute cancellations on secondary marketplaces. The primary culprit is believed to be “speculative ticketing”, where unverified sellers list tickets they do not yet own, hoping to source them cheaper and closer to the event. When ticket prices soar, these sellers simply back out of the deal to resell them for a higher profit, leaving buyers like Montalvo empty-handed with a refund that doesn’t cover their travel costs.
Eben Pingree, 44, from Boston, faced an identical scenario after his wife Caitlin paid $2,800 on StubHub for tickets to the Scotland v Haiti match to surprise their 11-year-old son Cole. They had co-ordinated an extensive trip with another father-son duo, only for the tickets to vanish on match day. “They basically had to just leave us there, and so my son was just devastated,” Pingree told the BBC.
Back in Dallas, Montalvo and his family spent their match evening at a local fan festival instead of watching from the stands. “It was a super sad weekend… inside, outside… [but] we enjoyed the time together,” he added.
Separately, two World Cup fans have filed a lawsuit against StubHub in a proposed class action on Tuesday, accusing the resale platform of failing to deliver tickets they had paid for. Julie Reeker Moghal and Reuben Renteria, who said in a court filing that they were acting on behalf of themselves and all others in a similar situation, each paid StubHub at least $1,900.