ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – It’s something concertgoers fear doesn’t happen to them: Having expensive tickets stolen out of their Ticketmaster accounts – and it’s not just for big-name artists like Taylor Swift.
What was supposed to be a fun evening in Moline for one Rockford family quickly turns into panic. They spent the rest of the night figuring out who stole their tickets.
“Whoever did this just took the joy and the emotions right out of our hearts,” says Caryn Paulson.
Roughly seven months ago, Paulson surprised her daughters with third-row tickets to Saturday night’s Sugarland and Little Big Town concert in Moline, but the three ran into a major hurdle just as they got to the venue.
“Lo and behold, they were gone,” says Paulson. “It was more hurtful, you know, hurt my heart more than anything.”
“I could see in her face something was wrong. And I was just like, ‘This could not be possible to happen to us,’” says Paulson’s daughter Bailee Rodriguez.
They vanished from Caryn’s account and Apple Wallet and someone transferred them to three people Caryn has never heard of.
The three were talking in the Uber ride to the concert about people hacking into Ticketmaster accounts and stealing expensive Taylor Swift tickets only to find out they’d be the latest victims of a nationwide scam.
“All three of us called a different number to try to get through to Ticketmaster and it took literally two full hours before somebody answered,” says Paulson.
“There was, you know, the nosebleed seats for like 50 bucks. But it’s like, why would we choose that? You know, when we could have had third row, that’s all we would have been thinking about,” says Rodriguez.
In a statement to WIFR, Ticketmaster says:
“Scammers are looking for new cheats across every industry, and tickets will always be a target because they are valuable, so we are constantly investing in new security enhancements to safeguard fans.”
“This is happening over and over to people and they’re not really like taking initiative, but it is their fault,” says Rodriguez.
“My girlfriend just texted me last night. She lives in Florida and they’re on the way to the P!nk concert and said the same exact thing just happened to them,” says Paulson. “Unfortunately, something like this we will never get back.”
Ticketmaster says the top way to prevent this is to create a strong and unique password not used anywhere else, especially for personal emails attached to the account where security issues often originate.
Ticketmaster adds a user’s digital history is how they can investigate this issue and (in most cases) recover fan’s tickets in less than two days.
The Paulsons have not received a refund.
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