Ticketmaster Pauses Eras Tour Ticket Transfers Until Three Days Before Event

Ticketmaster made headlines over the past week as fans across all genres saw tickets disappear from their accounts and transferred to strangers. Amid the reported hacks, Ticketmaster revealed that Taylor Swift ticketholders will be unable to transfer their Eras Tour tickets until three days before the event date.

A Swiftie in Chicago, Gabby Murillo, had planned on traveling to Miami for a show in late October, but found out her tickets were stolen. She reached out to Ticketmaster on multiple platforms, and while she finally confirmed the issue would be resolved and her tickets would be restored, she received some more bad news: her tickets would not be returned until three days before the show date.

Ticketmaster confirmed to the Toronto Star that it is pausing ticket transfers until three days before each show. While it is unclear whether or not this decision is due to several reports of ticket theft, unauthorized ticket transfers have been rampant over the past few months, particularly among Swifties.

| READ: Dozens of Fans See Tickets Stolen From Ticketmaster Accounts | 

In Connecticut, Swfitie Blaine Heck had a pair of $3,500 Taylor Swift tickets stolen from her account. She said that someone had hacked her Ticketmaster account and swiped the pair. The tickets were restored within hours after MarketWatch reached out to Ticketmaster. Similarly, an Indiana resident lost her Swift tickets vanish from her account and after numerous attempts contacting Ticketmaster, she reached out to the TV station WTHR. Only after the station contacted Ticketmaster were the tickets restored to her account.

One Canadian Swiftie, Jeremy Brady, told Global News’ Consumer Matters he purchased two Swift tickets in August 2023 for her Toronto show, totaling over $2,000. However, in September, his tickets vanished and were sold to someone in Corpus Christi, Texas. Brady was unable to get in contact with someone from Ticketmaster after multiple attempts, yet after Consumer Matters contacted the ticketer, his tickets were restored.

TicketNews reached out to Ticketmaster for comment.

Although Ticketmaster suffered a massive data breach earlier this year — where hackers accessed some 1.3 terabytes of data — the ticketing giant stands by the fact that user’s passwords were not exposed in the incident, telling KIRO 7 that “the vast majority of what we’re seeing is because scammers have accessed a fan’s email account.”

In addition to the data breach, Ticketmaster is also the subject of an antitrust lawsuit alongside its parent company Live Nation by the Department of Justice and 39 states, as well as the District of Columbia. The suit aims to break-up the pair, alleging monopolistic and anti-competitive business practices.