When Sergio Enrique Alvarado Montalvo paid $1,700 (£1,300) on StubHub to surprise his father with World Cup tickets, he envisioned an unforgettable Father's Day watching Lionel Messi play.

Instead, after flying his parents from Mexico to Dallas for the Argentina v Austria match, and spending nearly $6,000 (£4,600) on travel and hotels, the family was left stranded outside the stadium gates.

Just one day before they were set to travel to Dallas, 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, hoping they could still get their tickets, 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."

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 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 an industry practice known as "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 for their tickets that doesn't cover their expensive travel costs.

'My son was devastated'

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," Montalvo 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.

It was filed by 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.

The pair said they had paid StubHub at least $1,900 each for World Cup tickets that were never delivered.

"[Fans] were lied to and purchased World Cup Tickets for large sums of money - only ‌to ⁠incur tremendous financial losses," the complaint said.

This marked a "new low" for an industry that has been "rampant with consumer protection issues", the filing said.

StubHub declined to comment on the case. Fifa did not comment directly on the lawsuit when contacted by the BBC.

Corporate finger pointing

The scale of the crisis has sparked a massive game of corporate finger pointing.

All tickets for the World Cup are only accessible on tournament organiser Fifa's website or app, so any bought on resale sites such as StubHub have to be transferred within the Fifa site or app.

StubHub has blamed Fifa, claiming its new ticketing app launched right before the event suffered "significant performance issues that have affected transfers across all resale platforms".

Fifa shot back directly, stating that its official platform is the only guaranteed sales channel and that it cannot vouch for tickets bought via third parties. The governing body said that it "rejects any suggestions" that the technical issues hitting secondary marketplaces are the fault of Fifa's own system.

It added that its ticketing platform was "operating reliably" and said more than 5 million people had attended matches so far.

But experts say the platforms cannot hide behind software glitches.

"I blame StubHub 100%," said Scott Friedman, co-founder of the Ticket Talk Network, who has already compiled more than 600 consumer complaints from this tournament alone.

"Fifa is no angel. Their ticket tech is absolutely terrible. It's like software out of 1999," he added.

While StubHub maintains that it strictly prohibits speculative ticketing on its platform, industry watchdogs and frustrated users widely believe the practice remains rampant.

Some sellers are also feeling the crunch. One seller in Austin told the BBC he lost $2,600 after listing a legally purchased Fifa Marketplace ticket on StubHub. Though he sold it for $1,200 and sent it to the platform's auto-generated e-mail address, StubHub cancelled the sale for "non-fulfilment" - withholding his payout and charging him a $1,400 penalty fee.

For the average consumer, fighting back against a big corporation can seem like an impossible uphill battle.

Bradford Clements, an attorney who currently represents clients with over $2.4m in claims against StubHub, the majority of which are not related to the World Cup, notes that the company's complex dispute process often forces regular fans seeking redress to give up entirely.

"People don't understand that StubHub's name of their game is to intimidate you, defer you, and deny you," Clements told the BBC, also citing legal dispute notices that were mailed to the company but returned.

StubHub declined to comment on Clements' accusation.

It remains unclear how many people have had problems with tickets bought on StubHub or other ticket resale sites. Hundreds of fans have been complaining online, while one report suggested thousands have had their tickets cancelled.

A StubHub spokesperson said it was increasing its capacity to source replacement tickets for affected customers and that every order was backed by its FanProtect Guarantee, meaning that if customers don't get the tickets they ordered, or comparable or better replacement ones, they will get a refund.

However, the fine print means little to fans who are out thousands in non-refundable travel.

As the World Cup moves into the high-stakes rounds, industry watchdogs warn the cancellation crisis may intensify, leaving more families stranded outside stadium gates with little to show for an experience meant to last a lifetime. (BBC)

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