A DEVASTATED family say they’ve lost more than $1,200 after their concert tickets were stolen from their Ticketmaster account.
The family thought there must have been a mistake when they logged onto their account and saw every ticket had been transferred and claimed.
Virginia Lasky lost more than $1,200 worth of tickets[/caption]
She saw all 14 tickets had been taken from her Ticketmaster account[/caption]
A series of emails showed the tickets had been transferred to a total stranger[/caption]
“I instantly felt sick,” said Virginia Lasky. “I felt sick. I panicked.”
The mom from Gig Harbor, Washington said she was getting ready for work when she got a series of emails from Ticketmaster.
The emails said that her tickets for a range of upcoming shows and musicals had been sent to someone else.
All of the 14 tickets, worth more than $1,200, had been transferred to a total stranger.
After thinking there must have been a mistake, she went online and discovered she wasn’t the only victim of the scam.
She saw that dozens of Ticketmaster customers in her county alone claimed to have had their tickets stolen from their accounts in similar cyber scams.
“More and more I found comments for people on Reddit,” she told ABC affiliate KIRO7. “Just random posts that this is happening everywhere.”
Many of the claims of fraud were reported in the months following a massive data breach affecting Ticketmaster customers.
Ticketmaster said in a statement at the time: “Ticketmaster passwords were not exposed in the data incident earlier this year.”
The statement went on: “The vast majority of what we’re seeing is because scammers have accessed a fan’s email account.”
Ticketmaster data breach
In summer 2024, more than 500 million Ticketmaster customers were reportedly victims of a data breach.
- In June 2024, Ticketmaster notified users of a data breach resulting in 560 million users’ data being leaked.
- The company told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that “a criminal threat actor” offered to sell users’ information on the dark web.
- Before the official announcement on May 28, hacking group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility.
- ShinyHunters is an international cyber threat group that has claimed to have breached large companies such as Microsoft and AT&T.
- The group sought $500,000 for the 1.3TB of Ticketmaster’s customer information, including addresses, phone numbers, and credit card details.
- Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Entertainment, confirmed that the data breach happened because of unauthorized access to a third-party cloud storage platform.
- Although Live Entertainment has not stated which third-party database leaked the information, it is speculated that the AI cloud database platform, Snowflake, was compromised.
At the time, cybercriminals claimed they had stolen up to 500 million customers’ personal details.
Hacker group Shiny Hunters claimed to have stolen personal information belonging to 560 million people who bought tickets from the platform or its parent company Live Nation.
Ticketmaster customers were warned to carry out several important checks on their accounts following reports of a major data breach.
One Ticketmaster customer lost $600 after falling for a sophisticated scheme.
Traci Mendez bought tickets for a concert by rapper Travis Scott as a Christmas present for her son, but the day before, the tickets had gone.
She called what she thought was the right number, but ended up being defrauded out of $600.
And an embarrassed Taylor Swift fan got scammed buying tickets after ignoring major “red flags.”
The ticketing giant has given advice on what it says is the best way for customers to avoid online scams.
It said: “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.”
