Dozens of Taylor Swift fans in Ontario reported being scammed. Expert says ticket-sale monopolies are to blame

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 CBCNews that they paid for what they thought were legitimate tickets to one of the pop star's six Toronto showsbut 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 asurprise and that the root of the problem is Ticketmaster's control of ticket sales. Ticketmaster is the exclusive primary seller of tickets for most major concert events in Canada and the U.S.

Manywho missed out on getting tickets through Ticketmasterflocked toresale companyStubHub, where tickets were even more scarce and prices are inthe thousands per ticket.

"Systemically, this is actually part of a bigger issue, which is the monopoly that Ticketmaster has on the control and sale of tickets, and the resale market's basically effectively controlled through StubHub," Tsai said.

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

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Taylor Swift fans claim they were scammed by a ticket broker in Burlington, Ont., who allegedly sold the same seats for the same Toronto shows multiple times. Hundreds of fans may have been taken in by the scam.

The Halton Regional Police Service, which covers the Ontario communities ofBurlington, Oakville and Milton, startedgettingreports last Thursday from people whobought 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 upwardof 150 fraud complaints related toSwift ticketssince last year, including about 40 in the past week. Some of thosereports 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 womanin a group chat of local moms saying she had access to unused corporate tickets for resale. Amutual friend vouched for the woman as someone who had come through with legitimate tickets for past events.

Attardscraped together $1,050, with help from her parents, and bought two tickets to the Nov. 21 concert as a Christmas gift for her teenagedaughter. The tickets, she was told, would be sent 48 hours before the show. Thisseemed normal, because Ticketmaster was also delayingdeliveryto prevent resales.

But as the day approached, she got amessage 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 byanother 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 acry like that before," Attard said. "She just looked completely shocked and just heartbroken."

Attard took to Facebook to share her experienceand 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 theanecdotes being shared suggest the same seats for the same nights were resold multiple times.

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"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.

CBCNews is notnamingthe 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 concertwith her daughters.

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

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Longtime Swifties Lindsay Lemire and Amber Gerrits say they had their Eras Tour tickets stolen from their Ticketmaster account and they still aren't sure if they'll get them back.

But Tsaialso hopes provincial and federal regulators will step in and make consumers less dependent on monopolies that charge "through the nose" for concert tickets. Optionscould include competing ticket sellers and fixed prices on resale tickets,similar to whatalready exists in some parts of Europe, he said.

"We could reform our laws, protect consumers, and make sure that when you do a resaleon 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," Tsaisaid.

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 Departmentsued to break up Live Nation.

And in July, the attorney general for Washington, D.C., sued StubHub, accusing the company of advertising deceptively low prices and then ramping them up with extra fees, a practice known as "drip pricing."

And for one fan, a happy ending

Namita Sapraalso bought two tickets for last Thursday's show from the Burlington seller. She paid $970 apieceand was told tickets would be released the day of the concert.

When the day came, the seller told hershe 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 starteda 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.Sapraand 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 bein Vancouver next month.