'Horribly unfortunate': B.C. mother and daughter out $1,600 after Taylor Swift ticket scam

A B.C. mother and daughter are out $1,600 after falling victim to a Taylor Swift ticket scam.

Just days after Mounties in North Vancouver warned the public of two recent incidents in which ticket-seeking residents were scammed out of more than $1,000 each, Audra O'Loughlin is adding her voice to the warning.

The Sunshine Coast resident thought she had done her due diligence about the offer, which was reposted on Facebook by a co-worker a few weeks ago.

O'Loughlin asked her co-worker if the person offering the tickets was trustworthy, and he vouched for the seller, saying they were former work colleagues.

Encouraged, O'Loughlin reached out, asking to buy two tickets. The seller responded that they had four and were offering them for $400 apiece.

O'Loughlin's daughter sent the seller $800 via e-transfer, and O'Loughlin sent the other half, but the seller came back with a request for an additional $400 per ticket, purportedly to change the name associated with the tickets.

The mother told CTV News that was a red flag.

"We've bought tickets before. We've never heard of that," she said. "I said, 'I'd just like to have the tickets now.' As soon as I said that, they blocked me on the messenger."

O'Loughlin thinks her co-worker's friend – the person purportedly offering the tickets – had either had their account hacked or was being impersonated. She said the original post offering the tickets has been deleted.

"I was sick to my stomach," she said, describing the feeling of realizing she had been scammed.

"I was so mad at myself."

O'Loughlin's experience mirrors that of two other victims whose stories were shared by North Vancouver RCMP earlier this week. In each of those cases, the scammers stopped responding shortly after funds had been e-transferred. 

Mounties warned people looking for tickets on the secondary market to avoid offers posted on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, and recommended refusing to pay by e-transfer if they choose to pursue offers on those platforms.

O'Loughlin said she reported the transfers to her bank, but was told it's unlikely the money could be recovered.

"I've basically written it off as I gave this person a lovely donation and, no, I will never see the money back, which is, you know, horribly unfortunate," she said.

She said she's sharing her story in hopes of helping others looking for tickets to Swift's sold-out Eras Tour to avoid falling victim to similar scams.

"Ask more questions, definitely," O'Loughlin said. "If they're in a hurry to get the money from you, then you need to back down. You need to walk away and say, 'This sounds like a scam.'"