Fearless fraudsters, broken-hearted buyers: Expert says Taylor Swift scams show flaws in ticket system

A Taylor Swift ticket scam in southern Ontario left potentially hundreds of Swifties with broken hearts and empty wallets, and a legal expert says that type of fraud won’t be curbed until Ticketmaster’s North American monopoly over big-ticket events is broken.

Several individuals confirmed to CBC that they paid for what they thought were legitimate tickets to one of the pop star’s six Toronto shows but never received them. They all said they got them from the same reseller, a woman in Burlington, Ont.

“The hotter the ticket, the bigger the draw it is for scammers,” said Daniel Tsai, a business and law lecturer at the University of Toronto.

He said the widespread fraud around Swift tickets isn’t a surprise and that the root of the problem is Ticketmaster’s control of ticket sales, including resale markets through its affiliate StubHub.

“We have a situation here where consumers don’t really have a choice,” he said. “If they want to get these tickets, it’s out of desperation that they have to go to sources like Craigslist, Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and subject themselves to a lack of safety and controls where they can be exploited.”

The Halton Regional Police Service, which covers the Ontario communities of Burlington, Oakville and Milton, started getting reports last Thursday from people who bought Eras Tour tickets from a third party. The force said it has received more than 40 complaints totalling about $70,000.

Toronto police say they have received upward of 150 fraud complaints related to Swift tickets since last year, including about 40 in the past week. Some of those reports are tied to the Burlington case, police said.

No charges have been laid by either police service.

‘The tickets aren’t there’

One of those complaints was filed by Burlington mom Alaina Attard.

After failing to get tickets when they went on sale last year, Attard saw a post from a woman in a  group chat of local moms saying she had access to unused corporate tickets for resale. A mutual friend vouched for the woman as someone who had come through with legitimate tickets for past events.

Attard scraped together $1,050, with help from her parents, and bought two tickets to the Nov. 21 concert as a Christmas gift for her teenage daughter. The tickets, she was told, would be sent 48 hours before the show. This seemed normal, because Ticketmaster was also delaying delivery to prevent resales.

But as the day approached, she got a message from their mutual connection.

“She said something’s wrong, the tickets aren’t there, it’s a scam,” Attard said.

“I just was absolutely gutted.”

When she contacted the seller, she said, the woman claimed she had been scammed by another person, who was supposed to provide her with the promised tickets. This was the first Attard had heard about another party being involved. 

Her daughter was devastated. 

“I’ve never seen a cry like that before,” Attard said. “She just looked completely shocked and just heartbroken.” 

Attard took to Facebook to share her experience and found a surprising number of people who had fallen for the same scam. She said she’s now in three different group chats and that the anecdotes being shared suggest the same seats for the same nights were resold multiple times. 

“There are people that are sharing very personal stories as to why they wanted these tickets. There’s people that beat cancer, and this was the treat that they got themselves,” she said. “This has hurt so many people.”

Attard does not expect to get her money back.

CBC News is not naming the alleged ticket seller. We reached out for comment but did not get a response.

Government regulation needed

Another person caught up in the scam, Burlington mom Melinda Tarantino, told CBC Hamilton she spent more than $3,000 for four tickets to see the concert with her daughters. 

Tarantino said she has heard from nearly 160 people who collectively bought about 420 tickets from the same Burlington reseller.

But he also hopes provincial and federal regulators will step in and make consumers less dependent on monopolies that charge “through the nose” for concert tickets. Options could include competing ticket sellers and fixed prices on resale tickets, similar to what already exists in some parts of Europe, he said.

“We could reform our laws, protect consumers, and make sure that when you do a resale on a ticket, it’s on a fixed price and you can’t gouge people and ruin some kid’s dream of seeing their hero in concert,” Tsai said. 

Live Nation’s acquisition of Ticketmaster in 2010 has frequently come under fire, notably after it botched sales to Swift’s 2022 tour, sending fans into hours-long online queues and charging prices fans said were too high. This prompted congressional hearings in the U.S. and bills in state legislatures aimed at better protecting consumers.

In May, the U.S. Justice Department sued to break up Live Nation.

And for one fan, a happy ending

Namita Sapra also bought two tickets for last Thursday’s show from the Burlington seller. She paid $970 apiece and was told tickets would be released the day of the concert.

When the day came, the seller told her she didn’t have them.

“I just felt at a loss. I felt defeated, and I felt so taken advantage of,” she said. 

She filed a complaint with police in Toronto, where she lives, then started a fruitless search on StubHub.  

Then she got an email from her brother, who lives in the United Kingdom. He’d managed to score tickets at the last minute and sent them to Sapra as a surprise. Sapra and her friend just had time to get to Rogers Centre.

“I just bawled,” she said. “It was the sweetest thing I think anyone had ever done for me.”

Swift’s run of six sold-out Toronto concerts concludes with shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Rogers Centre. 

The last three dates on Swift’s Eras Tour will be in Vancouver next month.