Online ticket thefts target Swifties. Here's how to protect yourself.

Taylor Swift Eras Tour concerts tickets don't travel easy, aliases cheap. For fans of nan superstar who negociate to snag tickets, nan thought of losing them ne'er crosses their mind. But that's precisely what's happening to Swifties nationwide arsenic hackers target Ticketmaster accounts, stealing customers' tickets for resale connected different sites.

"It was for illustration that gut punch," Morgen Bernius, a Maryland mom, told CBS News nationalist user analogous Usher Qurashi successful describing nan infinitesimal she discovered nan Taylor Swift tickets she purchased for her girl had abruptly vanished from her Ticketmaster account.

"The tickets are gone — gone," said Bernius, adding that she could outcry conscionable reasoning astir it. "It was devastating," she added.

Ticketmaster won't opportunity really galore group person had their tickets stolen, reported Qurashi, but accounts of summons theft akin to Bernius' person rippled passim societal media complete nan past month. "I woke up and my tickets had been 'successfully' transferred," said different theft victim, utilizing aerial quotes.

"The No.1 extremity I could springiness to fans to protect themselves is to make judge they person a secure, unsocial password, that they are not utilizing connected different platforms," Kaitlyn Henrich, caput of world astatine Live Nation Entertainment, genitor institution of Ticketmaster, told Qurashi. 

Asked if nan institution has grounded its customers, Henrich added, "We are perpetually striving to look astatine what's going connected and amended nan experience."

For now, that acquisition includes a 48-hour mean hold for fans to person their tickets restored aft notifying nan institution of their disappearance. As an added precaution, Ticketmaster is limiting summons transfers to 72 hours earlier Eras Tour concerts and requiring two-factor authentication for immoderate transactions.

"It's a very mini percent, little than a tenth of 1 percent," said Henrich, "but evidently for that 1 instrumentality who's going done that, it's a really stressful situation." 

Online summons thefts besides wounded those who unknowingly acquisition tickets that had been stolen. 

Karen Perry, who paid much than $4,000 for 2 seats connected StubHub to spot nan Eras Tour successful New Orleans, sewage an email from TicketMaster conscionable weeks earlier nan show informing her that her tickets were stolen and would beryllium returned to nan original buyer.

"The tickets that were transferred to you were acquired by personification who was attempting to bargain tickets. As a result, they person been cancelled and returned to nan original summons holder," nan missive read.

"My bosom dropped, like, my tummy sank," Perry told Qurashi. "Like, I was astatine activity and I instantly started crying."

StubHub says Ticketmaster ne'er informed them astir nan customer thefts, which it only recovered retired astir done media reports. 

"I deliberation that if location was a world where, for example, we would spot Ticketmaster beryllium much collaborative, aliases much transparent, astir nan problems they're having, and really they're attempting to lick those problems, we could beryllium a partner successful that effort," Laura Dooley of StubHub told Qurashi. 

What you tin do to protect yourself

Experts opportunity location are respective steps summons buyers tin return to trim nan likelihood of getting ripped off.

• Check early and often that your tickets are still successful your relationship and haven't been transferred.
• Buy from sellers who connection replacement aliases refund guarantees.
• Take screenshots of each of your purchases.

As for Perry, who unknowingly purchased stolen tickets disconnected of StubHub, she was capable to find caller seats pinch nan thief of nan company, and was capable to drawback Swift successful action successful mid-October.

"We conscionable had nan champion nighttime of our full lives," Perry said. "Hands down. It was amended than our wedding. It was truthful good."

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