Two people were arrested in New York City for stealing over 900 concert tickets, including many for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. They allegedly made more than $600,000 from this scheme.
The suspects, Tyrone Rose and Shamara P. Simmons, were charged with grand larceny, computer tampering, and conspiracy. Prosecutors say they took about 993 tickets, not just for Swift’s concert but also for shows by Ed Sheeran and Adele.
Rose worked for Sunderland, a third-party company for StubHub. Using their access, they intercepted tickets that had already been sold. They took the URLs of these tickets and redirected them to Simmons and a now-deceased accomplice. They then listed these tickets on StubHub to resell them from June 2022 to July 2023.
District Attorney Melinda Katz stated that the defendants aimed to profit from the popularity of Taylor Swift’s concerts, exploiting a loophole in the ticketing system. They fraudulently acquired tickets to one of the most significant tours in recent history and made a huge profit in the process.
Mark Streams, Chief Legal Officer at StubHub, assured fans that their safety is a priority. He explained that upon discovering the fraud, they immediately reported it to both law enforcement and their customer service partner, Sutherland Global Services. The employees involved exploited a weakness in the system but were quickly identified and fired. StubHub has also refunded affected customers and improved its security measures.
The Eras Tour has set records, generating over $2 billion globally. Tickets originally sold for an average of $204 but were reselling at an astonishing average of $1,652 in secondary markets.
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