Their outfits are picked out, their nails are ready and the excitement Shelby Singleton and Katie Hanz feel about seeing Taylor Swift live Friday at Hard Rock Stadium is palpable.
Singleton was one of the lucky ones, nabbing four floor tickets she purchased at face value directly from Ticketmaster last year.
“I got a code and that’s why I had to buy,” she explained.
Then this September, she realized the tickets had been stolen, transferred right out of her account.
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“Oh my gosh, I was like panicking,” she said.
It is a similar story NBC Responds units across the country have heard from other fans, who reached out asking for help recovering concert and event tickets that had been transferred out of their Ticketmaster accounts. Karen Platt was among them.
“It really is incredibly frustrating,” Platt said. “What was something that’s supposed to be a fun, exciting experience is now turning into me calling Ticketmaster every single day, waiting on hold, being told I’ll be called back and not getting any resolution at all.”
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Platt's husband gifted her two Taylor Swift concert tickets to mark their 30th wedding anniversary. She reached out to NBC6 Responds and after our team got involved, Platt got the news she was hoping for.
“Thank you so much for your help because I truly believe without it, I’m not sure my tickets would have been recovered,” she said.
But because of the ticket fiasco, she did not book a flight. So she ended up having to make the long drive from North Carolina to South Florida alone to join her daughter for what she hoped would be the experience of a lifetime.
“I’m so excited to spend this weekend with my daughter and even more excited to get to go to this concert with her,” she said while on the road.
As for Singleton, she said three of her tickets were returned to her account. The fourth ticket had been sold, ruining the plans of one of her friends.
“They gave me the impression that once a ticket is sold, it’s almost impossible to get back,” Singleton said.
But that sold ticket was eventually transferred back into her account, after we emailed Ticketmaster.
Singleton and Hanz were still excited about seeing Taylor in Miami, but had this to say to Ticketmaster after their ordeal.
“They make it seem like it’s our fault because we have bad passwords,” Hanz said. “It’s not our fault. Take a little bit of responsibility that something happened.”
In one more twist, Singleton found someone to sell that fourth ticket to, but somehow it was stolen from her account again. She was able to recover it just a day before the concert.
Ticketmaster did not respond to NBC6’s emails about Singleton, but did say previously that their security measures allow them to restore just about all tickets, and that any delays in confirming this with fans is because they are prioritizing those with upcoming shows.
Ticketmaster also said it was “constantly investing in new security enhancements to safeguard fans.”
It remained unclear how scammers got access to Platt and Singleton's tickets.
