NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Two sisters who go to Belmont University wanted to go to the Charli XCX show at the Bridgestone Arena this week.
So their mom bought tickets for them several months ago. But last week, those tickets mysteriously disappeared out of her Ticketmaster account. And apparently she's not the only one.
"My daughters were very excited to see the show with friends," Michelle Wise said.
Her two daughters love Charli XCX.
"I saw a message pop up on my phone that my tickets were being transferred," Wise said. "And it was horrifying because I knew I wasn’t transferring the tickets. I was the only one that had access to my account. And I just watched in a flash the tickets just leave."
I found the same situation is suddenly happening to Ticketmaster customers across the country. There are posts online describing how tickets are mysteriously being transferred out of customers' accounts to virtual strangers.
In fact, when Wise called her credit card company to report what had happened, she learned she wasn't alone.
"The person who helped me on the phone said, 'You’re not gonna believe this, but I just got off the phone with another customer that had the same thing happened to them.' And I said, 'Was it for the same concert?' And she said, "No, it was a different concert, but it was Ticketmaster tickets,'" Wise said.
But what's really bothering Wise is how she says Ticketmaster is handling this wave of stolen tickets.
"It makes me not want to deal with Ticketmaster at all," she stated.
Immediately after her tickets were transferred out of her account, Wise contacted the ticketing giant and said she was told they would investigate and would freeze her tickets so she wouldn't lose them. They informed her they would be able to recover them so she or her daughters could use them.
But the very next day, she found that wasn't true.
"I just happened to look for my exact seats on other resale sites and I found my seats listed relisted for sale on two different sites. Then I looked at Ticketmaster and found my exact four seats relisted for sale on Ticketmaster," Wise recalled.
But not only were they listed on Ticketmaster's site, Wise said her stolen tickets were then sold to someone else through Ticketmaster.
"It was really unbelievable," Wise said of the whole experience.
This comes after Ticketmaster announced a major data breach earlier this year.
But the company assured customers that their accounts were safe.
Now customers are posting angry comments on Ticketmaster's Facebook page, expressing their frustration at the entire situation and describing how difficult it is to get through to the company and get a real person who can provide help or answers.
"It feels like Ticketmaster needs to do better," Wise suggested.
Wise finally heard back from Ticketmaster after I reached out to the company. They told her the hacker had gotten into her account using her email and password.
What should I do if I have a Ticketmaster account?
So this is important.
If you have a Ticketmaster account, login and change your password. Ticketmaster recommends you do that every few months. And make sure it's a strong and unique password.
Wise did eventually buy other tickets so her daughters could go to the show. She was worried when she didn't hear anything from Ticketmaster, so she bought new tickets through Seat Geek. They were slightly more expensive, and the seats were not as good as the originals.
But Ticketmaster has now agreed to pay her what she spent on those tickets, but she has not received the refund yet.
She still has not gotten an explanation about why Ticketmaster did not freeze her original tickets like they told her they would. But, I should note that Ticketmaster does get a cut every time tickets are purchased through its site.
The company told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that what we are seeing across the country has nothing to do with the data incident earlier this year because passwords were not part of that breach. Ticketmaster maintains that hackers are getting in through people's email accounts, but Michelle wise doesn’t believe that’s what happened.
What Ticketmaster has to say
Here is Ticketmaster's full statement to NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
"Overall, our digital ticketing innovations have greatly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and duplicated PDFs. Having that digital history is also how we are able to investigate and successfully return tickets for fans. The top way fans can protect themselves is setting a strong unique password for all accounts — especially for their personal email which is where we often see security issues originate. Scammers are looking for new cheats across every industry, and tickets will always be a target because they are valuable, so Ticketmaster is constantly investing in new security enhancements to safeguard fans."
