Why Ticketmaster Users Saw Purchases Disappear – NBC4 Washington

A concertgoer was looking forward to big performances – and then his tickets disappeared from his Ticketmaster account.

“My tickets were gone, for both Imagine Dragons and Taylor Swift, and as you can imagine, they were expensive tickets,” said a Ticketmaster user named Nick. “I started freaking out.”

Several customers across the country have reported that their tickets have disappeared from their accounts. They said they received notifications that their tickets had been “successfully transferred.” But they didn't know who transferred them or where the tickets were going.

“Between 4:16 and 4:20 they took my tickets and successfully transferred them to themselves,” said customer Jess Mantione of Philadelphia.

Nick said he could see his tickets for sale on StubHub. He said he told customer service but was told there was nothing they could do.

Frustrated Ticketmaster customers from coast to coast turned to networks NBC and Telemundo after they said Ticketmaster was of no help.

“They told me they would get back to me within 24 hours, but they didn't,” said Breauna Hannon of San Diego.

How NBC Responds could help

NBC Responds' calls to Ticketmaster were answered and the company began helping customers get their tickets back.

“I didn’t get a response until I contacted NBC,” Nick said.

Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation suffered a data breach in April that compromised the email addresses, phone numbers and some personal information of millions of customers. The companies say users' passwords were not exposed. So what happened?

Live Nation's Dan Wall spoke to our NBC station in Chicago. He essentially blamed weak user passwords for the problem.

“If you haven't updated your password recently and you have a password that you use in many different places, they may be able to access your account,” said Wall, an executive vice president.

What you can do to protect your Ticketmaster tickets

If you have a Ticketmaster account, log in. If your tickets are gone, contact Ticketmaster. They informed us that they would cancel the original ticket and issue a new ticket. Even if you don't have any tickets in your account, change your password.