An Adelaide family has been left heartbroken and out of pocket after having to buy Olivia Rodrigo tickets twice just hours before her Melbourne Guts show.
Amanda and Ian McAloon have opened up about their heartbreak after enduring a horrific ordeal that cost them almost $3,000 after falling victim to cruel scammers.
Speaking to the Courier mailthe couple said they had bought their die-hard fan daughters Emily, 19, Chloe, 17, and Imogen, 14, tickets to see Olivia’s October 10 show at Rod Laver Arena.
They claimed that they had originally managed to get three VIP tickets for $450 each and dropped their daughters off at the venue 15 hours before the show so they could enjoy the excitement.
But after about two hours of waiting in line at the venue, Emily then allegedly checked the tickets when she noticed they were under two different names.
“I Googled it and found out that if it’s not in your name, someone did something with the tickets,” Ms. McAloon told the publication, saying the realization made her “heart flutter.”
She said her husband had previously been unable to access his Ticketek account and only later realized it had been hacked.
After police told her to fill out a cybercrime form online, Ms McAloon said her husband rushed to a ticket office where they were told the tickets had been stolen and resold on Ticketek Marketplace.
An Adelaide family has been left heartbroken and out of pocket after having to buy Olivia Rodrigo tickets twice just hours before her Melbourne Guts show (Olivia is pictured in August)
“He realized they were being resold online for $1 each,” she said. “I didn’t know how to tell the girls.”
The couple managed to obtain three more VIP tickets for the show, which the parents purchased for their daughters, bringing the concert total for both sets of tickets to $2,750.
A Ticketek spokesperson told the Courier Mail that all e-commerce platforms were experiencing a huge increase in phishing attacks.
They said customers should immediately contact police and Ticketek customer service if they believe they are victims of stolen or embezzled tickets, or if they have purchased fraudulent second-hand tickets.
“We would also like to reiterate that Ticketek’s accounts or individual data have not been compromised,” the spokesperson said.
They added that customers should also change our update passwords every six months.
Amanda and Ian McAloon opened up about their heartbreak after enduring a horrific ordeal that cost them almost $3,000 after falling victim to cruel scammers (Olivia is pictured in April)
Olivia has performed four incredible performances for her Australian fans in Melbourne and is now gearing up for her highly anticipated shows in Sydney.
She will next perform at the Qudos Bank Arena on October 17, 18, 21 and 22 – which are also her final stops on the Australian leg of her Guts tour.
However, it wasn’t all plain sailing for Olivia during her Melbourne shows as she fell through a hole in the stage during a shocking blunder at Rod Laver Arena.
At her fourth and final show in the city, Olivia suddenly disappeared through a floor hatch, which had apparently been accidentally left open from a previous entrance.
Luckily, Olivia managed to grab her hands on the edge of the stage and clamber back onto the stage, sharing her shock at the unexpected fall with the audience.
She sounded shocked and assured her fans she was unharmed as she said: ‘Oh my God! That was fun, I’m doing well! Sometimes there’s just a hole in the stage, okay… where was I?’
She quickly recovered from the dramatic fall and continued her performance while proving that she was a professional in every sense.
