Taylor Swift tickets disappeared from Ticketmaster account, family says

A family from B.C.’s Lower Mainland is speaking out after a hacker managed to steal their four tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, leaving two young fans temporarily heartbroken.

Abbotsford resident Lindsay Lemire told CTV News she purchased the passes to Swift’s Dec. 7 show in downtown Vancouver in November 2023 through Ticketmaster, planning to go with her sister and their two daughters, ages 12 and seven. to go.

With the highly anticipated show quickly approaching, Lemire decided to check the tickets last Sunday, only to realize they were gone.

“They were on my Ticketmaster account,” Lemire said. “Then in September someone hacked my account, used my login details and transferred them.”

The entire theft happened “within seconds,” said the frustrated fan, who believes her information may have been compromised in the company’s environment. July 2024 cybersecurity breach.

Dealing with frustration with Ticketmaster

Lemire said she immediately reported the theft Sunday and called Ticketmaster customer service “probably nine times,” with little tangible help for several days.

“I’ve just been on a hamster wheel,” she told CTV News. “I want someone from Ticketmaster to communicate with me. It’s just outrageous.”

In the meantime, the situation has been “quite disturbing and heartbreaking” for Lemire’s 7-year-old daughter and 12-year-old niece, she said.

On Friday, hours after sharing her story on a news radio program, Lemire said she finally received a call from Ticketmaster’s fraud department, assuring her that the tickets had been recovered and returned to her account.

Tickets will be reinstated in “almost all cases,” the company says

Contacted for comment, Ticketmaster told CTV News that in situations like this, the company is almost always able to reunite customers with their tickets.

Overall, digital ticketing technology has “greatly reduced” fraud compared to previous systems that used PDF files and paper tickets, a spokesperson said in an email.

“Having that digital history is also how we can investigate the situation and in almost all cases recover fans’ tickets, with most receiving confirmation that their tickets have been recovered within 48 hours,” the spokesperson added.

The best way for customers to protect themselves is to use a strong password that is not linked to other accounts, the company said. Passwords shared with email accounts in particular are “where we often see security issues arise,” the spokesperson added.

Ticketmaster has insisted that no passwords were compromised over the summer.