A concertgoer was looking forward to some big performances – and then his tickets vanished from his Ticketmaster account.
“My tickets were gone, both for Imagine Dragons and Taylor Swift, and these were, as you can imagine, pricey tickets,” a Ticketmaster user named Nick said. “I started to freak out.”
Several customers across the country have reported watching their tickets vanish from their accounts. They said they received notifications that their tickets were “successfully transferred.” But they didn’t know who transferred them or where the tickets went.
“Between 4:16 a.m. and 4:20 a.m., they took my tickets and successfully transferred them to themselves,” customer Jess Mantione, of Philadelphia, said.
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Nick said he could see his tickets for sale on StubHub. He said he told customer service but was told there was nothing they could do.
Frustrated Ticketmaster customers from coast to coast sounded off to NBC and Telemundo stations after they say Ticketmaster was no help.
“They told me they’d get back to me in 24 hours and they didn’t,” Breauna Hannon, of San Diego, said.
How NBC Responds was able to help
NBC Responds’ calls to Ticketmaster did get answered and the company started helping customers get their tickets back.
“I did not get a response until I contacted NBC,” Nick said.
Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, suffered a data breach in April and millions of customers had their email addresses, phone numbers and some personal information compromised. The companies say users’ passwords were not exposed. So, what happened?
Dan Wall of Live Nation spoke with our NBC station in Chicago. He basically blamed weak user passwords for the problem.
“If you haven’t updated your password recently and if you’re using a password that you use in a lot of different places, they might be able to get into your account,” Wall, an executive vice president, said.
What to do to try to protect your Ticketmaster tickets
If you have a Ticketmaster account, log in. If your tickets are gone, contact Ticketmaster. They told us they will cancel the original ticket and reissue a new ticket. Even if you don’t have tickets sitting in your account, change your password.
