Ticketmaster customers across the US have reported tickets being transferred out of their accounts without their permission, with one ticket-buyer then finding that her stolen tickets were being resold via ‘verified resale’.
Some people affected, and some media commentators, have linked the trend to the massive hack of Ticketmaster’s platform earlier this year. However, the Live Nation ticketing company denies that passwords were taken in that incident, insisting that the unapproved ticket transfers are likely the result of customers having their email accounts hacked.
WGAL News 8 reported on the experience of Amanda Shaffer from Pennsylvania, whose Pink tickets were transferred out of her Ticketmaster account without permission. “I woke up and saw an email saying, ‘Hey, your transfer to this person was successful’”, she told the news station. “And I was like, ‘Wait. I’m sorry. What?’” It was Shaffer who tracked where her tickets had ended up, finding them being resold on the Ticketmaster platform via ‘verified resale’.
Taylor Swift fans have also been affected. MarketWatch reports that a fan in Connecticut had a pair of $3500 Taylor Swift tickets stolen from her account, while an Indiana concert-goer told TV station WTHR that her digital tickets for Swift’s shows likewise vanished.
In theory Ticketmaster can track these unapproved transfers and return the tickets, and both Swift fans did get their tickets back after the media outlets they respectively spoke to contacted the ticketing company. However, the fan from Indiana said she’d made “numerous” unsuccessful attempts to contact Ticketmaster before getting in touch with WTHR.
Ticket News has also gathered various similar complaints about disappearing Ticketmaster tickets on social media. Earlier this year hackers who are part of the ShinyHunters group claimed to have accessed data relating to about 560 million Ticketmaster customers, a massive hack that has already resulted in a class action lawsuit.
However, Ticketmaster says that its users’ passwords were not accessed as part of that hack. Responding to a report by KIRO 7 on the disappearing tickets, it said “the vast majority of what we’re seeing is because scammers have accessed a fan’s email account”.