It was a swift kick in the behind for one diehard Taylor Swift fan after her coveted tickets to one of the pop sensation’s sold-out Toronto shows were stolen from her online Ticketmaster account.
Alicia Gilby told CityNews her sister, Gillian, was one of the lucky Swifties who managed to snag second-row seats to one of the six upcoming shows at Rogers Centre.
With the November concert date rapidly approaching, they should’ve been giddy with excitement. Instead, Gillian called her sister in tears with some heart-breaking news.
“My sister called me, probably close to 11 p.m. at night, and said, ‘You’re about to start crying. You’re going to be so upset, but my tickets have been stolen.’ I was just shocked, and she was shocked.”
The sisters still aren’t exactly sure what happened, but something seemed amiss a few weeks ago when Gillian received an email from Ticketmaster saying her tickets for the show had been transferred to someone she didn’t know.
“I was really upset,” Gillian said. “I was crying a little bit. I felt like guilty.”
She immediately contacted Ticketmaster.
“They had let us know that they would be sending this to what they called the fraud department, and then we’d be hearing back from the fraud department in about three to five business days.”
That was almost three weeks and there’s still no resolution.
They aren’t the only Swifties to report tickets vanishing into the online ether.
Several fans in the U.S. also claim their tickets were stolen straight from their accounts.
Cybersecurity expert, Ritesh Kotak, says these frustrating situations are why it’s important for fans to monitor their accounts and use all available security tools.
He adds that cases like this may take a while to reach a resolution. First, Ticketmaster will have to look into who had access to the account.
“Every time you log in there’s an IP address, so a physical and a virtual address,” he explained. “It’s a long strenuous investigation … And we’ve got to think about this from another angle as well — these tickets that get stolen, they may be resold to somebody else who thinks that they’re buying it from a legitimate individual and spending thousands of dollars.”
In addition to monitoring your accounts, Kotak recommends changing passwords often, avoid recycling old passwords, and always enabling multi-factor authentication.
CityNews reached out to Ticketmaster about the sisters’ situation. A representative said they would be looking into the case, but provided no additional information.
