Lakers fan says StubHub canceled his tickets to Kobe Bryant's last game when prices rose Companies are now competing to give Jesse and his friends the best seats possible

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A big Lakers fan with a serious hunch that Kobe Bryant's last game in Los Angeles would fall at the end of the 2016 season took a shot and purchased tickets to the team's final seasonal home match on April 13, per the Lead Sports. After all, they were being sold at a great price, and it seemed like a good shot in the dark just in case it ended up being the basketball superstar's last hurrah before retirement.

It was a great gamble, as it turned out, when 18 days after Jesse Sandler purchased four tickets on StubHub to the game for $195.89 a piece, the cost of similar tickets rose almost 1000 percent.

However, before Sandler could truly appreciate his good fortune and intuitive planning, the seller yanked the tickets away. The ticketing site soon sent Sandler an email informing him his tickets were voided, essentially because the price he paid for the four tickets was now too low.

"The Seller let us know that these tickets were listed incorrectly," the email read. "Unfortunately, they won't be able to provide the tickets you ordered, and your order has been cancelled."

The message went on to say that the ticket price was too small, and that similar tickets were now going for around $1,490.

Sports Illustrated reports that as StubHub's policy currently stands, the site charges ticket sellers a 20 percent ticket cost penalty when they cancel an order. That number, as many believe, isn't a high enough percentage to de-keep a person from canceling a sale to relist the ticket for a much bigger price. As Sandler was told, similar cases occurred when Derek Jeter announced his retirement.

However, as a StubHub representative told SFGATE, this mismanagement of Sandler's case never should have happened. The company's user agreement states clearly that "Under no circumstances may Sellers cancel orders at one price and repost the same tickets for a higher price."

Tickets are offered for sale through StubHub on July 23, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. Cyber thieves recently hacked into about 1,000 StubHub customers' accounts and fraudulently bought tickets for events. (Photo Illustration by Scott Olson/Getty Images) less Tickets are offered for sale through StubHub on July 23, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. Cyber thieves recently hacked into about 1,000 StubHub customers' accounts and fraudulently bought tickets for events. (Photo ... more Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Lakers fan says StubHub canceled his tickets to Kobe Bryant's last game when prices rose 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Sandler, being a huge Lakers fan and an even bigger Bryant fan, refused to let that slide. After a flurry of emails, phone calls, and offers of website vouchers (which, as he noted, didn't even add up to the cost of one of the new, more expensive tickets), Sandler resorted to reaching out to the press.

After the story began catching media attention, StubHub found and offered Sandler tickets to the game, according to The Lead Sports. Budweiser, an official NBA sponsor, then swooped in with better tickets to Sandler, only to then be one upped by Tickets For Less. The StubHub competitor not only offered even closer seats, they also sent their company president to hand deliver them.

Help find Jesse Sandler! He wanted to see @kobebryant in his last game but his tix were taken away #ThisBudsForJesse pic.twitter.com/O3IsOET64T — Budweiser (@Budweiser) January 6, 2016

Our president, Dan Rouen, will be traveling to #LA tomorrow to personally deliver @Lakers tickets to Jesse Sandler. @theleadsports @espn — Tickets For Less (@TicketsForLess) January 7, 2016

StubHub, meanwhile, has made it clear to SFGATE that they have learned from their mistake. "Our User Agreement is 100% accurate and should have been implemented in the case of Jesse Sandler," the rep stated. "The handling of this situation was an error that should have not occurred. We hold our sellers to a high standard and we absolutely do not condone market manipulation like this."

As the representative said, they reached out to Sandler "many times" to apologize and make amends. "We take our customer service very seriously," the company added. "This was a mistake that we will learn from and we will do everything in our power to make sure this doesn't happen to one of our customers again."

StubHub also gave SFGATE the following statement on Sandler's case:

This was a poor experience for Jesse and we will do everything we can to get him into this game. As a marketplace that oversees thousands of transactions a day, buyer and seller errors and discrepancies can occur. The reality is that these instances happen less than 1% of the time. When these instances do occur, buyers are protected by our Fan Protect Guarantee. Oftentimes, we are able to provide the buyer with comparable tickets. Frankly, this is what should have happened in this instance and the way this buyer was treated was a mistake.