Blaine Heck was over the moon when she found out that her family had bought tickets on StubHub for her and her niece to see a Taylor Swift Eras Tour show in New Orleans this October. The seats were in a great spot and cost $3,500 for the two of them. Plus, she got to see an artist she really likes.
Heck, 36, of Essex, Conn., said, “It was a legendary gift for both of us.”
The gift quickly turned into a nightmare for Heck, though, when she found out that someone had hacked into her Ticketmaster account and stolen the tickets. Heck had moved the tickets there so that she could use them. After making many calls to Ticketmaster with long wait times, the problem was finally fixed. Actually, Heck said she finally talked to someone who told her that the company would look into it, but it could take up to five days.
Heck only had to wait one day in the end. The tickets were added back to her account just hours after MarketWatch called Ticketmaster for this story about Heck’s case and other problems the company is having. But Heck still doesn’t trust the ticketing giant, which is part of the huge music company Live Nation Entertainment. LYV 0.55%.
“Worrying all day was a waste of time.” “No one should have to go through this,” she told CNN.
Heck said she doesn’t know what caused the problem and that it might have started with someone breaking into her email account. But in the end, she only knows that the tickets were taken from her Ticketmaster account.
Several news sources say that other people have been in Heck’s shoes when seats that were supposed to be safe in their Ticketmaster accounts were suddenly stolen.
‘When it comes to security and Ticketmaster, these are not two words that go together.’
Cybersecurity expert Andrew Plato
CNN reports that Savannah Van Skyhawk of Indiana also lost her tickets to a Taylor Swift show in Indianapolis in November. The tickets disappeared from the Ticketmaster website. But what really annoyed Van Skyhawk was that Ticketmaster didn’t fix the problem right away.
“All they would say was, ‘We’ll call you in three to five days.'” Van Skyhawk told WTHR, “I’d wait three to five days, and they wouldn’t call me.” “Every time I called them, they said it would take three to five days.” It felt like no one ever called me; it was just a circle.
The tickets were finally added back to Van Skyhawk’s account, but only after the station called Ticketmaster.
In the past few years, Ticketmaster has had a number of problems with tickets and hacking, both for the very popular Eras Tour shows and in general.
When Swift fans, or “Swifties,” tried to buy tickets for the Eras Tour shows, they had trouble. This caused the U.S. Senate to hold a meeting on the issue.
The Justice Department recently attacked Live Nation Entertainment, saying that its actions are monopolistic.
Ticketmaster also had a data theft this year. At the time, the company said, “The database had some users’ limited personal information who bought tickets to events in North America.”It could be your email address, phone number, protected credit card information, or other personal information you give us.
This is the kind of thing that makes Andrew Plato, head of the cybersecurity company Anitian, tell MarketWatch, “When it comes to security and Ticketmaster, these are not two words that go together.”
A lot of people have also complained about Ticketmaster to the Better Business Bureau. Some of these complaints are about tickets being stolen and user accounts being hacked. Ticketmaster’s comments on the site, on the other hand, show that many of those concerns have been taken care of.
Based on reviews, the company has a 1.06 out of 5 customer rating with the Better Business Bureau. On the other hand, it has a higher score of 3.8 out of 5 on the Trustpilot review site.
A Ticketmaster representative told MarketWatch that the company’s platform and services are safe: “Overall, our digital ticketing innovations have greatly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and copied PDFs.” We can also look into and safely return tickets, like we did for Ms. Heck, because we have that digital history.
A representative for Ticketmaster also said that people who buy tickets can help themselves protect themselves from fraud: “The best thing fans can do to protect themselves is to set a strong, unique password for all of their accounts, especially their personal email, which is where we often see security problems start.” In every business, con artists are always looking for new ways to cheat, and tickets will always be a target because they are important.
Cybersecurity experts agree with that. They say that problems affect many companies these days and that customers need to be careful. For example, Ticketmaster suggests that customers change their passwords to something safe and unique. Having the same basic password on multiple sites is one of the worst things people can do, says Steve Tcherchian, chief product officer of Xypro, a company that makes safety solutions.
