Happy ending for sisters after their stolen Taylor Swift Toronto concert tickets are returned

Two Taylor Swift-loving sisters will be in attendance at one of her upcoming sold-out shows at Rogers Centre after their stolen tickets were returned, Ticketmaster told CityNews on Friday.

Sisters Alicia and Gillian Gilby said their dreams of attending a Swift show were dashed when their second-row tickets were somehow stolen from Gillian’s online Ticketmaster account a few weeks ago.

“My sister called me, probably close to 11 p.m., and said, ‘You’re about to start crying. You’re going to be so upset, but my tickets have been stolen.’ I was just shocked, and she was shocked,” Gillian told CityNews on Thursday.

Alicia said she knew something was fishy after she received an email from Ticketmaster saying her tickets for the show had been transferred to someone she didn’t know.

“I was really upset,” she said. “I was crying a little bit. I felt guilty.”

She immediately contacted Ticketmaster.

“They had let us know that they would be sending this to what they called the fraud department, and then we’d be hearing back from the fraud department in about three to five business days.”

Those three to five business days stretched into several weeks without a resolution.

That changed on Friday after Ticketmaster confirmed the return of the tickets to Alicia’s online account.

“Overall, our digital ticketing innovations have greatly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and duplicated PDFs,” a Ticketmaster spokesperson told CityNews.

“Having that digital history is also how we are able to investigate and successfully return tickets for fans.

“The top way fans can protect themselves is setting a strong, unique password for all accounts – especially for their personal email, which is where we often see security issues originate,” the spokesperson added.

Despite the stress, Alicia was pleased with the end result.

“We are very happy that the Ticketmaster fraud department has been able to recover our tickets and eagerly awaiting them being put back into our account. We can’t wait to see Taylor Swift from the second row!”

The sisters weren’t the only Swifties to report tickets vanishing into the online ether.

Several fans in the U.S. also claim their tickets were stolen straight from their accounts.

“Scammers are looking for new cheats across every industry, and tickets will always be a target because they are valuable so Ticketmaster is constantly investing in new security enhancements to safeguard fans,” the Ticketmaster spokesperson added.

Ticketmaster added that the theft of the sisters’ tickets was not related to a data breach reported in July.

“Ticketmaster passwords were not exposed in the data incident earlier this year,” the spokesperson said. “What we’re seeing is scammers accessing a fan’s email account.”

Cybersecurity expert Ritesh Kotak says these frustrating situations are why fans need to monitor their accounts and use all available security tools.

In addition to monitoring your accounts, Kotak recommends changing passwords often, avoiding recycling old passwords, and always enabling multi-factor authentication.