Corporate Accountability Project · Junk Fees · Sports & Entertainment
Class Action Filed Jan. 26, 2026 | N.D. California | Case 3:26-cv-00849
THE GIANTS CHARGED FANS HIDDEN FEES FOR YEARS AND KEPT THE MONEY
A federal class action alleges that San Francisco Baseball Associates used illegal “drip pricing” to inflate ticket costs by up to 45%, cheating hundreds of thousands of California fans out of millions of dollars in undisclosed junk fees.
🔴 HIGH SEVERITY
TL;DR
The San Francisco Giants systematically advertised ticket prices that were not the prices fans actually paid. By withholding mandatory “Convenience” and “Order” fees until the final screen of a timed checkout process, the Giants tricked hundreds of thousands of fans into paying substantially more than they agreed to, violating California’s Honest Pricing Act and existing state consumer protection law. One fan expected to pay $20 for two tickets and was charged $29, a 45% markup buried at the bottom of a countdown-clock checkout page. The Giants stopped the practice in July 2024 but have never refunded a single dollar to the fans they overcharged.
This is not a technical violation. It is a deliberate pricing deception run by a billion-dollar sports franchise against the very fans who fill its stadium. Demand accountability.
$5M+
Minimum amount in controversy
45%
Price increase above advertised cost per transaction
100K+
Estimated class members affected
$9
Junk fees hidden per transaction in lead plaintiff’s purchase
$90B
Annual junk fee cost to U.S. consumers (White House estimate)
$0
Refunded to fans since the Giants stopped the practice
Core Allegations
Core Allegations
What the Giants Did · 7 points
▾
| 01 | The Giants advertised ticket prices that did not reflect the true cost of purchasing a ticket, hiding mandatory “Convenience” and “Order” processing fees until the final screen of checkout. | high |
| 02 | Using a practice the FTC calls “drip pricing,” the Giants displayed low base prices to attract shoppers and only disclosed the true total at the bottom of a timed checkout screen, after consumers had already invested time, effort, and psychological commitment. | high |
| 03 | Lead plaintiff Juan Flores purchased two tickets advertised at $10.00 each ($20.00 total) and was charged $29.00, a 45% markup, due to a hidden $5.50 “Convenience” fee and $3.50 “Order” processing fee disclosed only at the end. | high |
| 04 | The Giants never explained the purpose of the Convenience fee or Order processing fee, nor how those fees were calculated, at any point during the purchase flow. | high |
| 05 | The Giants used a countdown clock on the checkout page to pressure consumers to complete purchases quickly, deliberately impairing their ability to evaluate the fee disclosures or comparison shop elsewhere. | high |
| 06 | Because the full price was never disclosed before checkout, consumers could not effectively search for tickets within their desired price range or compare the true cost against third-party ticket sellers. | medium |
| 07 | Hundreds of thousands of consumers had materially identical experiences to the lead plaintiff, establishing a pattern of systematic deception affecting a class of fans across California and beyond. | high |
Regulatory Failures
How Law Failed Fans · 4 points
▾
| 01 | Drip pricing and bait-and-switch advertising were already illegal in California under the Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law before the Giants stopped the practice, meaning the Giants operated illegally for years without regulatory intervention. | high |
| 02 | California enacted the Honest Pricing Act (S.B. 478) on October 7, 2023, explicitly banning junk fee pricing. The law became effective July 1, 2024. The Giants continued charging undisclosed fees through at least July 2024, operating in violation of both the new law and the prior statutes it confirmed. | high |
| 03 | The FTC’s own economic research demonstrates that drip pricing forces consumers to pay upward of 20% more than they would if actual prices were disclosed upfront. Regulators documented this harm for years before the Giants were sued. | medium |
| 04 | Despite stopping the hidden fee practice in approximately July 2024, the Giants have made no attempt to refund the millions in junk fees already collected, leaving class members with no remedy short of litigation. | high |
Profit Over People
Revenue Prioritized Over Transparency · 4 points
▾
| 01 | Large corporations with sophisticated marketing departments, like the Giants, knowingly deploy drip pricing because research confirms it guarantees consumers pay more than they otherwise would, generating revenue that honest pricing would not. | high |
| 02 | By advertising artificially low base prices, the Giants made their tickets appear cheaper than competitors, attracting shoppers who then found themselves locked into higher total costs at the end of an investment-heavy checkout process. | high |
| 03 | The Giants could increase hidden fees without suffering meaningful market consequences, because consumers could not compare true total prices against competitors’ prices until it was too late in the purchase process to walk away easily. | high |
| 04 | The Giants’ conduct was characterized in the complaint as “malicious, fraudulent, and wanton,” in that the team intentionally and knowingly provided misleading pricing information for its own financial benefit at the expense of its own fans. | high |
Economic Fallout
Financial Harm to Fans · 4 points
▾
| 01 | The amount in controversy exceeds $5,000,000, meaning the Giants’ hidden fee revenue from this class of fans alone represents millions of dollars extracted through deceptive pricing. | high |
| 02 | Consumers exposed to drip pricing are significantly more likely to make financial mistakes, selecting options with higher total prices than alternatives because they anchor on the lower advertised base price, according to peer-reviewed marketing science research. | medium |
| 03 | Fans who wanted to stay within a specific ticket budget had no reliable way to do so, because search filters and price ranges on the Giants’ website were calibrated to the false base price, not the true total cost. | medium |
| 04 | The White House estimated that junk fees cost U.S. consumers over $90 billion per year. The Giants’ scheme represents exactly the type of corporate extraction that compounds into staggering national economic harm when replicated across industries. | medium |
Corporate Accountability Failures
No Refunds, No Admission, No Remedy · 4 points
▾
| 01 | The Giants stopped charging undisclosed junk fees around July 2024, likely in response to the Honest Pricing Act taking effect, but proactively refunded nothing to the fans they had already overcharged. | high |
| 02 | The Giants attempted to route consumers into a binding arbitration agreement. A court in a parallel case against the Washington Nationals, operating an identical website, already denied this tactic, finding the Giants-equivalent MLB team cannot enforce an arbitration clause it was not party to. | high |
| 03 | Many class members may be entirely unaware they have legal recourse, because the individual junk fee amounts (often under $10 per transaction) are small enough that most consumers absorb the loss without investigating. | medium |
| 04 | Plaintiff and the class seek full restitution and disgorgement of all junk fees collected, punitive damages, and injunctive relief, as the Giants’ voluntary discontinuation of the practice does not undo the harm already inflicted on fans. | medium |
Exploiting Delay
Structural Advantage Through Timing · 3 points
▾
| 01 | The Giants deliberately structured their checkout flow so that the true price appeared only after consumers had already selected seats, created or signed into an account, scrolled past parking and donation upsells, and entered payment information, maximizing psychological and logistical sunk cost. | high |
| 02 | Research cited in the complaint confirms that once a consumer decides what to buy, they are unlikely to abandon the transaction due to the “additional cognitive effort” involved in restarting their search, a behavioral dynamic the Giants’ pricing model directly exploited. | high |
| 03 | The countdown clock on the checkout screen further compressed the consumer’s ability to evaluate the hidden fees or reconsider the purchase by artificially creating time pressure at precisely the moment the true price was finally disclosed. | high |
Timeline of Events
Before 2024
The Giants maintain a ticket checkout flow that advertises base prices without disclosing mandatory service, convenience, and order fees until the final screen, in violation of existing California consumer protection statutes.
Oct. 7, 2023
California enacts S.B. 478, the Honest Pricing Act, explicitly banning drip pricing and junk fees. The law confirms this conduct was already illegal under the UCL and False Advertising Law. Effective date set for July 1, 2024.
March 17, 2024
Lead plaintiff Juan Flores purchases two Giants tickets advertised at $10 each ($20 total), and is charged $29 at checkout due to hidden $5.50 and $3.50 junk fees, a 45% price increase over what was advertised.
July 1, 2024
California’s Honest Pricing Act takes effect. The Giants discontinue their undisclosed junk fee pricing around this time. No refunds are issued to previously overcharged fans.
Sept. 16, 2025
A D.C. Superior Court rules in a parallel case (National Consumers League v. Washington Nationals) that the MLB team cannot enforce an arbitration clause against fans who were not party to the underlying terms of use, setting precedent directly applicable to the Giants case.
Jan. 26, 2026
Juan Flores files a class action complaint against San Francisco Baseball Associates LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking full restitution, disgorgement, and punitive damages on behalf of hundreds of thousands of fans.
Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
QUOTE 1
The core allegation, stated plainly
Core Allegations
“For years, San Francisco Baseball Associates LLC (the ‘Giants’) systemically cheated fans out of millions of dollars by falsely advertising their ticket prices for baseball games.”
💡 This is the opening sentence of the complaint. The word “systemically” is intentional: this was not an error or oversight. It was a pattern, run for years, by a franchise that knew exactly what it was doing.
QUOTE 2
The advertised price was a fiction
Core Allegations
“In other words, the Giants’ advertised tickets were not actually available for purchase at the advertised prices.”
💡 This is the legal definition of false advertising: offering a price at which you have no intention of selling the product. What the Giants displayed was bait, not a real offer.
QUOTE 3
The 45% markup confirmed by receipt
Economic Fallout
“Despite the initial advertised total price of $20.00, Mr. Flores was ultimately made to pay 45% more in last-minute, mandatory Junk Fees.”
💡 The complaint includes the actual transaction receipt. This is not an allegation open to interpretation: the advertised price and the charged price are documented and they do not match.
QUOTE 4
The countdown clock as a pressure weapon
Exploiting Delay
“The countdown clock adds pressure designed to interfere with consumers’ decision-making and ensures that users are rushed to complete the purchase, despite the exorbitant fees tacked on at the end of the transaction after consumers are well down the path to purchase.”
💡 The Giants did not accidentally structure checkout this way. They built a clock into the interface specifically to prevent consumers from absorbing the fee disclosure and reconsidering.
QUOTE 5
Intentional, not accidental
Profit Over People
“The Giants’ conduct was malicious, fraudulent, and wanton in that it intentionally and knowingly provided misleading information to Plaintiff and the Class for the Giants’ own benefit to the detriment of Plaintiff and the Class.”
💡 “Malicious, fraudulent, and wanton” is not boilerplate. It is the specific legal standard that opens the door to punitive damages, the kind that are meant to punish, not merely compensate.
QUOTE 6
The FTC’s own words on why this causes harm
Regulatory Failures
“Consumers faced with such fees pay upward of twenty percent more than when the actual price was disclosed upfront,” and, as a result, such fees “impose substantial economic harms on consumers.”
💡 This is from FTC economic research quoted in the complaint. Regulators documented this harm in detail. The Giants charged these fees anyway.
QUOTE 7
What the California AG told businesses clearly
Regulatory Failures
“Put simply, the price a Californian sees should be the price they pay.”
💡 This is from the California Attorney General’s FAQ guidance issued to businesses in May 2024. The Giants had access to this guidance. The rule could not have been clearer.
QUOTE 8
How drip pricing kills fair competition
Economic Fallout
“Companies that engage in drip pricing will lure consumers away from honest competitors that do not engage in such practices (and thus appear to charge higher prices) and the dishonest companies will earn a larger share and make higher profits than those competitors.”
💡 Junk fee pricing is not just harmful to consumers. It punishes honest businesses that choose to show accurate prices, rewarding deception with market share.
Commentary
Isn’t this just a normal service fee? Every ticketing platform does this.
▾
That normalization is exactly the problem. “Everyone does it” is not a legal defense, and California specifically passed the Honest Pricing Act to end this industry-wide practice. The fact that other platforms also use drip pricing means the harm is broader, not that it is acceptable. The law is explicit: the price shown must be the price charged. Full stop. When an industry normalizes deception, the answer is accountability, not acceptance.
Is this lawsuit legitimate, or is it just a money grab by trial lawyers?
▾
The complaint documents a specific transaction with a documented receipt showing the price discrepancy. It cites peer-reviewed research, FTC guidance, California legislative history, and a directly analogous ruling from a D.C. Superior Court. California’s Honest Pricing Act unambiguously prohibits what the Giants did, and the complaint notes that the practice violated existing law even before that act passed. The case rests on documented harm to real people, backed by a stack of law and evidence. Skepticism of class actions is reasonable; dismissal of this one is not supported by the facts.
The Giants stopped charging hidden fees. Isn’t that enough?
▾
No. Stopping the practice in July 2024 does not undo years of overcharges already collected from hundreds of thousands of fans. The Giants voluntarily ended the scheme only when required to by California law, and they have refunded nothing. Accountability means making the people you harmed whole, not just stopping the harm when regulators force your hand. The class is seeking full restitution of every dollar collected through this deceptive pricing model.
Who is harmed most by junk fee pricing schemes like this one?
▾
People with limited budgets who set a spending limit and trusted the advertised price. Families buying tickets to games as a special outing, who selected “affordable” seats based on a displayed price and then found themselves committed to 45% more at checkout. As former President Biden noted in his 2023 State of the Union, junk fees may not matter to the wealthy, but they add up to hundreds of dollars for everyone else. This is wealth extraction from fans who were trying to afford something they love.
Why couldn’t fans just walk away when they saw the higher price at checkout?
▾
Because the Giants built their checkout process to make walking away as psychologically and logistically difficult as possible. By the time the true price appeared, consumers had already selected seats, signed in or created an account, scrolled through multiple screens of upsells, entered payment details, read a 15-page terms and conditions document, and were staring at a countdown clock. Peer-reviewed research confirms that consumers who have invested this level of effort are statistically far less likely to abandon a purchase, even after discovering the true price. The Giants designed this. It was not an accident.
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
▾
Several concrete actions: (1) If you purchased Giants tickets online before July 2024 through the Giants’ website or MLB Ballpark app and paid a service, convenience, or order fee not shown in the original advertised price, you may be a class member. Monitor ClassAction.org and the court docket (Case 3:26-cv-00849, N.D. Cal.) for updates on how to participate. (2) Report junk fee practices to the California Attorney General’s office at oag.ca.gov and to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. (3) Support legislation like the federal Junk Fee Prevention Act. (4) When you encounter hidden fees anywhere, document the original advertised price and the checkout total, and report the discrepancy. Collective documentation creates accountability.
Does this pattern extend beyond the Giants?
▾
Yes. The complaint references a nearly identical case against the Washington Nationals operating on the same MLB.com platform with the same checkout structure. Junk fee drip pricing is endemic across ticketing, hospitality, airlines, and subscription services. The White House estimates $90 billion in annual consumer harm from these practices. The Giants are one team in a much larger system designed to extract money from people who trust that the price they see is the price they’ll pay. This case is an opportunity to establish legal precedent that every industry using this model should fear.
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