Bina Ramroop expected a birthday memory inside the stadium. Instead, she ended up outside the gates, locked in a back-and-forth between ticketing companies as kickoff approached and her $485 seats never materialized.
Ramroop traveled to Atlanta Stadium on Monday with her grandson to watch Spain face Cape Verde in a World Cup match that finished in a scoreless draw. Hours before kickoff, she was still trying to resolve a ticket transfer issue between StubHub and FIFA’s official system. Each side pointed to the other as the source of the problem.
The tickets, purchased months earlier through StubHub, could not be transferred into FIFA’s required mobile app. As the crowd inside erupted for kickoff, Ramroop was offered a refund. She accepted it, not because she wanted out, but because there was no other option.
“I didn’t want a refund. I didn’t want my money back,” she said. “I wanted to go to the game.”
She is one of many fans reporting similar problems during the tournament, with complaints ranging from missing tickets to last-minute cancellations and failed transfers between FIFA’s platform and third-party resale sites. StubHub appears most frequently in the complaints, though SeatGeek and Vivid Seats users have also reported disruptions.
