Essex fan warns of ‘ticket takeovers' after Taylor Swift seats stolen online

It’s any ticket holder's nightmare.

Tickets stolen from online accounts just days before events fans have been looking forward to attending.

It’s happening across the country, and even here in Connecticut too.

“It’s a violation because you’re just like 'how, how did they get in?'” said Blaine Heck, of Essex.

Heck had been counting down the days to see Taylor Swift live in Louisiana.

“It was honestly one of the best gifts and surprises I’ve ever had,” she said of the gift from her husband.

But Heck’s excitement faded fast when she got an email from Ticketmaster.

“Congratulations your tickets have been transferred successfully to someone named A.M.,” Heck said.

She says when she read that, “My heart like sank.”

Unbeknownst to her, the tickets for her and her niece were transferred to a stranger’s account.

Our NBC Responds reporters are hearing from frustrated fans from around the country who are in the same situation.

“We’re at a loss. We have tickets for half the group. There’s six girls and we only have six tickets left. Even if we put them all together, we don’t have enough tickets for an adult to chaperone them,” said Alexandra Passer, of Demarest, New Jersey.

“We received an email that our tickets were transferred to somebody we didn’t know,” said Breauna Hannon, of San Diego, California. “I was devastated.”

“Between 4:16 a.m. and 4:20 a.m., they took my tickets and successfully transferred them to themselves,” said Jess Manitone, of Chalfont, Pennsylvania. “I wanted to throw up.”

“People spend their hard-earned money to go do this and then they’re just stolen away,” said Brenda Azzolino, of Flemington, New Jersey.

NBC spoke with Daniel Wall, an executive vice president of Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, after these problems surfaced.

“We're very committed to trying to deal with this problem,” said Wall.

He said the faster a fan finds out this ticket takeover happens in their account, let the company know ASAP, so it can cancel the original ticket and issue a new one.

But if you don’t catch it until just before showtime, it's a different story.

“And then it's very difficult to do anything for them,” Wall said.

While Ticketmaster experienced a data breach earlier this year, the company tells NBC that is not to blame for compromised passwords.

Rather, Ticketmaster says hackers are utilizing re-used passwords of other compromised email accounts to steal the tickets.

“Again, I don't want to sound like I'm sort of putting this on the fans, but the reality is that the number one problem with account takers from our site or for any other site is old credentials that have been compromised and that these bad actors can find on the dark web,” said Wall.

Heck says she changed her password right before she received the tickets.

She thought it was a unique and strong password.

She thinks the company should put more consumer protections in place, like two factor authentication, to transfer tickets.

“I feel like I did my job. I did what I was supposed to do. I changed the password,” said Heck.

With the help of NBC, Ticketmaster recovered her tickets.

In the meantime, Heck is changing her Ticketmaster password regularly to protect them until the superstar takes the stage.

But she knows many others are still down and out with tickets that have disappeared.

“You’re just like 'Oh my God, I have my tickets back, but these poor people.' Some of them are moms who are surprising their kids. This needs to be fixed. This can’t be happening,” said Heck.