Hacker stole Taylor Swift tickets from Ticketmaster account, B.C. family says

A family from B.C.’s Lower Mainland is speaking out after a hacker managed to steal their four tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, leaving two young fans temporarily heartbroken.

Abbotsford resident Lindsay Lemire told CTV News she purchased the passes to Swift’s Dec. 7 show in downtown Vancouver through Ticketmaster way back in November 2023, intending to go with her sister and their two daughters, ages 12 and seven.

With the hotly anticipated show fast approaching, Lemire decided to check on the tickets last Sunday – only to realize they had vanished.

“They’d been sitting in my Ticketmaster account,” Lemire said. “Then in September, someone hacked into my account, used my credentials, and transferred them.”

The entire theft happened “within seconds,” said the frustrated fan, who believes her information might have been compromised in the company’s July 2024 cybersecurity breach. 

Frustration dealing with Ticketmaster

Lemire said she reported the theft immediately on Sunday, calling Ticketmaster’s customer service department “probably nine times,” with little tangible help over several days.

“I’ve just been on a hamster wheel,” she told CTV News. “I want somebody from Ticketmaster to communicate with me. It’s just outrageous.”

In the meantime, the situation has been “pretty disturbing and heart-wrenching” for Lemire’s seven-year-old daughter and 12-year-old niece, she said.

On Friday, hours after she shared her story on a news radio program, Lemire said she finally received a phone call from Ticketmaster’s fraud department assuring her the tickets had been recovered and returned to her account.

Tickets restored in ‘nearly every case,’ company says

Contacted for comment, Ticketmaster told CTV News the company is almost always able to reunite customers with their tickets in situations like these.

Overall, digital ticketing technology has “greatly reduced” fraud compared to previous systems that used PDF files and paper tickets, a spokesperson said in an email.

“Having that digital history is also how we are able to investigate the situation and restore fans’ tickets in nearly every case, with most getting confirmation that their tickets were recovered within 48 hours,” the spokesperson added.

The best way for customers to protect themselves is using a strong password that’s not associated with any other accounts, the company said. Passwords shared with email accounts, in particular, are “where we often see security issues originate,” the spokesperson added.

Ticketmaster has maintained that passwords were not compromised during the breach over the summer.