CHICAGO (WLS) — A Chicago woman says all eight tickets for Usher were stolen directly from her Ticketmaster account.
The Usher: Past, Present, Future tour concert is Thursday, October 31, and she still doesn’t know if she’ll get them back in time.
Jazmin Johnson and her seven friends couldn’t wait to see the legendary artist perform at the United Center, but everything came to a standstill when she got a warning from Ticketmaster.
“I received a notification from Ticketmaster that my eight tickets had been transferred. I don’t know someone I’ve never met,” she said. ‘I immediately thought: wait, what? How could this have been transferred? I know I did not initiate a transfer.”
The tickets had disappeared from her account and been taken by a stranger.
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Johnson said she contacted Ticketmaster on Oct. 1 and they would investigate her case and get back to her within three to five days. But she became concerned when she saw others frustrated on social media. She said dozens of others claimed their tickets were also stolen.
“People were saying that Ticketmaster promised them the same thing, that they would work on it within three to five days and some of those people had missed their event and still hadn’t received a refund for their tickets,” Johnson said.
A woman who spoke to our Los Angeles sister station KABC said that after purchasing tickets to see Korn at BMO Stadium in LA, she received a similar email.
“I received an email saying our tickets had been transferred to someone we don’t know. We already booked the flights, hotels, rental cars and all that stuff,” said Breauna Hannon.
Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, revealed that it has acquired the victim of a massive cyber attack a few months ago putting user data at risk.
Johnson wonders if that attack could be related to the theft of her Usher tickets.
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“A month ago someone bought a college football ticket in my name and I changed my password after that incident. Because that happened again, and I had a strong password, that sounds like something is happening with Ticketmaster,” she said.
Ticketmaster said passwords were not disclosed in this year’s data breach, and that they see scammers having access to a fan’s email account.
In a statement, the company said in part: “Scammers are looking for new cheats in every industry, and tickets will always be a target because they are valuable, so Ticketmaster is continually investing in new security enhancements to protect fans… Overall , our innovations in digital ticketing have significantly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and duplicate PDFs.”
As for Johnson’s tickets, after the I-Team got involved, all eight were recovered.
“So right before you came, the tickets magically appeared on my account,” she said.
She just hopes they stay there.
“I’m still a little worried that this could happen again,” Johnson said.
Ticketmaster said the best way fans can protect themselves is to set a strong, unique password for all accounts; especially for your personal email address, where Ticketmaster said they often see security issues arise.
But Johnson said she had just changed her passwords before the hack happened and is urging Ticketmaster to take a closer look at its systems.
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