• Hackers break into the accounts of some Ticketmaster users and transfer tickets to themselves.
• Two concertgoers said it was shocking, but they got their tickets back to attend their shows.
• After BI asked Ticketmaster for comment, it refunded the costs of their tickets to the two concertgoers.

In September, Vashti-Jasmine McKenzie noticed that an event had mysteriously disappeared from her Google Calendar. It was a memory of an Usher concert in Dallas on October 5, synced to her Ticketmaster account.

McKenzie opened her email with a shock: the night before, a stranger had broken into her account, accessed McKenzie’s two tickets, for which she had paid $550, and transferred them from her account.

“If this happened in real life and someone robbed me, it would be like they robbed me,” said McKenzie, a 42-year-old conference manager.

McKenzie, a music fan who said she spent an estimated $10,000 on shows in 2024, eventually got her tickets back and went to the show, but remains critical of Ticketmaster.

McKenzie isn’t the only concertgoer who suddenly runs out of tickets. Similar incidents have been reported in Los Angeles, Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina. The playbook is generally the same: Ticketmaster customers buy tickets to see their favorite artists, but later receive an email stating that their tickets have been taken from their online wallet by an unknown hacker and quickly claimed.

These types of scams are just the latest in a series of headaches for the ticketing giant. Following a data breach earlier this year and sharp criticism from major stars like Taylor Swift, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in May that it had filed an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation, alleging that the company’s conduct company is ‘anti-competitive’. and illegal.” Live Nation, which was worth approximately $28 billion as of November 8, has a firm grip on the live entertainment industry. The DOJ said in its complaint that “Live Nation, through Ticketmaster, generates approximately 80% or more of primary ticket sales for concerts at major concert halls and a growing share of ticket sales on the secondary market.”

In response, Live Nation said the DOJ’s lawsuit would fail to resolve fans’ concerns with ticket prices and their ability to purchase them.

Still, the fact that McKenzie and at least one other customer experienced the ticket transfer scam firsthand has raised fears that their purchases are not safe.

In October, Mika City, a 28-year-old data analyst from Grand Prairie, Texas, spent $400 on two tickets to rapper Don Toliver’s show in Houston. Two days after purchasing them, she received an email from Ticketmaster at 6:08 a.m. stating that her tickets were being transferred to someone named “Floyd George.”

Just 39 seconds later, she received another email: “Floyd George” had accepted the ticket transfer and the tickets had been removed from her account.

That all happened before City even woke up – and despite the fact that she thought she had secured her account in June by changing her password.

City was also able to recover her stolen tickets through Ticketmaster and attend the show, but she added that the experience was stressful.

“I’m still afraid it will happen again,” City told BI.

Although Ticketmaster reinstated McKenzie and City’s tickets in time for their concerts, after Business Insider reached out for comment, the company refunded both of them the original cost of their tickets. It did not respond to BI’s other questions about account hacks and customer security.

However, a Live Nation executive told CBS News that the company was limiting the transfer of Taylor Swift tickets to 72 hours prior to concerts, following the theft of online tickets specifically for the Eras Tour. In some cases, Ticketmaster has also required two-factor authentication for ticket holders to make transfers. The Live Nation manager recommended that Ticketmaster account holders use a unique password that is not used for other platforms.

Getting tickets back can be a harrowing experience

After realizing the Usher tickets had been debited from her account, McKenzie said she called Ticketmaster and reported the incident to the fraud department, but did not immediately hear back.

Two days after her call, the tickets reappeared in her account – with the same seats and no extra charge. But it was enough to make McKenzie fearful of what might have happened if she hadn’t noticed the calendar change.

During the Usher concert, McKenzie added, she saw two women learn in real time that they were victims of a similar scam. They opened the Ticketmaster wallets on their phones at an entrance gate and discovered they were gone, she said.

City got her tickets back a day after they were transferred from her account, a week before the concert. She said she made repeated calls to reach Ticketmaster’s fraud department, who told her her case would be treated as a high priority due to the speed at which her event would take place.

For good measure, she also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau about the theft of her tickets, as well as a dispute with her bank. The BBB forwarded the complaint to Ticketmaster, according to screenshots from the online fair that City shared with BI. The company responded through the BBB a day after City had already done so recovered her tickets and said this would escalate her case.

She thought she would have to buy tickets again, she added, so she was surprised and pleased when Ticketmaster returned the tickets.

“I was so shocked because everyone else I’ve seen has said it took forever or they never got them back,” City said.

Ticketmaster’s recent problems

In May, Live Nation said it was investigating a data breach that affected some users who purchased tickets in North America. The leaked information may have included customer emails, phone numbers, encrypted credit cards and other personal information, Ticketmaster said in a statement.

The company said at the time that password information was not part of the data breach and that customers’ accounts were safe.

Fans and artists alike have complained about how difficult it is to purchase tickets.

In November 2022, Taylor Swift publicly addressed Ticketmaster after it announced it was canceling general sales for her Eras Tour after depleting inventory during pre-sales.

“It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people received tickets, but it really pisses me off that many of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” Swift wrote in a statement on Instagram.

Last month, Oasis fans in the UK took action with Ticketmaster after noticing an increase in ticket prices for the highly anticipated reunion tour due to the company’s model of adjusting prices based on demand. The outrage was so great that a British antitrust regulator is investigating the company’s practices.

For now, many fans continue to use Ticketmaster to see their favorite artists, even as some worry about the security of their purchases.

City told BI that even after she got her tickets back, she was still worried they would disappear from her account even after she changed her password again to protect them.

“If I didn’t have to buy from Ticketmaster, I wouldn’t do it,” she said.