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A Chicago woman says thieves stole Usher United Center concert tickets from her Ticketmaster account

A Chicago woman says thieves stole Usher United Center concert tickets from her Ticketmaster account

CHICAGO (WLS) – A Chicago woman says all eight of her Usher tickets were stolen directly from her Ticketmaster account.

The Usher: Past, Present, Future tour concert is Thursday, October 31st and she still doesn't know if she'll get it back in time.

Jazmin Johnson and her seven friends couldn't wait to see the legendary artist perform at the United Center, but everything came to a halt when she received a notification from Ticketmaster.

“I received a notification from Ticketmaster that my eight tickets had been transferred. Someone I’ve never met doesn’t know,” she said. “I immediately think, Wait, what? How could this be transferred? I know I didn’t initiate a transfer.”

The tickets had disappeared from her account and were stolen by a stranger.

READ MORE: Man warns others after being scammed by fake Ticketmaster customer service

Johnson said she contacted Ticketmaster on Oct. 1 and was told they would review her case and get back to her in three to five days. But she became concerned when she saw others frustrated on social media. She said dozens of others claimed their tickets were also stolen.

“People said Ticketmaster promised them the same thing, that they would work on it in three to five days, and some of those people missed their event and still haven't had their tickets refunded,” Johnson said.

A woman who spoke to our sister station in Los Angeles, KABC, said after purchasing tickets to see Korn at BMO Stadium in LA, she received a similar email.

“I received an email saying our tickets had been transferred to someone we don't know. We’ve already booked flights, hotels, rental cars, all that stuff,” Breauna Hannon said.

Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, announced that it was the victim of a massive cyberattack a few months ago in which user data was compromised.

Johnson wonders if this attack could be related to the theft of her Usher tickets.

RELATED: Live Nation, Ticketmaster's parent company, sued in a monopoly lawsuit

“Just a month ago, someone purchased a college football ticket in my name and I changed my password after that incident. Since this is happening again and I had a strong password, it sounds like something happened with Ticketmaster,” she said.

Ticketmaster said passwords were not exposed in this year's data breach, adding it involved fraudsters accessing a fan's email account.

In a statement, the company said in part: “Fraudsters are looking for new scammers across all industries and tickets will always be a target because they are valuable. That’s why Ticketmaster continues to invest in new security enhancements to keep fans safe… Overall, our digital ticketing innovations have significantly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and duplicate PDFs.”

As for Johnson's tickets, after the I-Team's intervention, all eight were reinstated.

“Just before you came, the tickets magically appeared on my account,” she said.

She just hopes they stay there.

“I’m still a little scared that this could happen again,” Johnson said.

According to Ticketmaster, the best way for fans to protect themselves is to set a strong, unique password for all accounts. especially for your personal email address, where, according to Ticketmaster, security problems often originate.

But Johnson said she had just changed her passwords before the hack occurred and is calling on Ticketmaster to take a closer look at its systems.

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