OC woman’s hacked Facebook account used to scam Taylor Swift fans looking for concert tickets
By Web Staff
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LOS ANGELES, California (KABC) — Taylor Swift will be on stage at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood next week for the final six shows of her highly successful Eras Tour.
It’s the hottest ticket in town, with some resellers charging $700 to more than $6,000 for tickets at SoFi. But the frenzy is also attracting scammers.
One Orange County woman says her social media accounts were hacked and used to scam Taylor Swift fans seeking to buy concert tickets.
Heather Moran says she was traveling out of the country when she noticed her bank account was missing money. She also noticed she was locked out of all her social media profiles when she got back from her trip.
Her money was eventually returned to her, and she planned on creating new social media profiles. But that’s when she noticed something strange.
“I started seeing that my old Facebook account that I no longer have access to was posting Taylor Swift tickets, and people were responding and people were buying the tickets,” Moran said. “And I had nothing to do with it.”
Moran said prospective buyers would even reach out to friends they had in common, believing they were protecting themselves from getting scammed.
“They would call a mutual friend and say ‘Hey I see your friends with Heather. Is she a safe person for me to buy tickets from?'” Moran explained. “And the mutual friend would say ‘Yes, she’s a good person. You can buy tickets from her,’ not knowing that I had been hacked and it wasn’t my account.”
All the communication was done through the hacked accounts, and money would be transferred via Venmo, Moran said.
Moran doesn’t know how her accounts got hacked, saying she didn’t offer up any personal information and didn’t try to buy Swift tickets herself.
“They just took it over,” she said.
She added that those scammed by her hacked account lived in the same city as she did. One person was swindled out of $1,400.
Experts say Swift tickers are in high demand and high-priced, which makes them attractive to scammers. Many are targeting victims through social media.
Ahead of Swift’s tour stops in California, state Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a consumer alert warning fans against counterfeit concert tickets and scammers.
Anyone who has been a victim of a ticket scam can file a complaint online with the California Department of Justice.
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