More and more fans in North Texas are telling us about their missing Ticketmaster tickets.

Earlier this month, our NBC 5 Responds team told you that some consumers’ digital tickets were transferred without permission. Read on to learn how to better secure your seats.

“My heart sank‘

When Angela Perdue contacted NBC 5 Responds, time was running out. The Usher tickets that Perdue had purchased months earlier were gone and the concert began in a few hours.

“I immediately called Ticketmaster to try to get a handle on the issue,” Angela Perdue told NBC 5. “It was a battle with them.”

Perdue said she believes the digital tickets are safe in her Ticketmaster account. Megan Clouse too.

“I thought we were safe,” Clouse said. “We purchased these tickets in advance through Ticketmaster.”

Clouse secured seats with Taylor Swift last year.

“It was like winning the lottery,” Clouse told us.

Clouse’s 7-year-old was counting down the days until the show in New Orleans until she saw emails from Ticketmaster saying her seats had been sent to someone else.

“I logged into my Ticketmaster account and it actually said they had been forwarded to a long fake email and my heart sank,” Clouse said.

Perdue and Clouse said Ticketmaster fan support told them they would investigate. Everyone feared they wouldn’t hear back in time for their events.

I’m looking for customer service

That’s exactly what happened to Rachel Reeves. She and her husband drove to Kansas City, Missouri, to see the Chiefs game. Hours before the Sept. 15 game, Reeves said the tickets were transferred from her account.

“I was panicking,” Reeves said.

She said she tried calling and messaging Ticketmaster fan support, but she couldn’t find anyone who could help her.

“We’re escalating, we’ll also deal with your type of news an hour or two after the game ends,” Reeves told NBC 5.

However, there was no loss that day. As Reeves thought it would be a “Hail Mary,” she contacted the Chiefs’ fan experience team. Reeves said a representative heard her story and provided two tickets.

“She called me,” Reeves remembers. “I’m going to cry because it was so beautiful. At the end he told me the Chiefs wanted to take care of us.”

Reeves points out that she paid almost $300 in service fees to Ticketmaster: “They charge you exorbitant fees and provide no service.”

CONSUMERS ASK SAFETY

After we contacted Ticketmaster, the company refunded Reeves’ service fees and reinstated tickets for Clouse and Perdue — just as it did for North Texas fans in a previous story we reported.

Consumers who contacted NBC 5 Responds said the unauthorized transfers occurred in September and October. Earlier this year, Ticketmaster suffered a data breach on a third-party cloud platform. It said customer passwords were not revealed.

A Ticketmaster spokesperson told NBC 5 Responds that it recommends consumers strengthen their passwords, including passwords for personal email accounts where Ticketmaster sees security issues.

Angela Perdue said Ticketmaster should do more to identify unauthorized ticket transfers.

“I should have received some sort of warning before someone just… stole my tickets. I should have received a notification on my phone like I receive the tickets on my phone,” Perdue said.

Clouse told us that she wants Ticketmaster to offer multi-factor authentication: “Just like I log into my email on my husband’s phone, I have so many options to confirm my identity. I get text messages, emails, etc. But for that? There was nothing there.”

Ticketmaster’s website states that a two-factor authentication feature is activated the first time you try to print tickets or change your email address on any device.

Since our last report, NBC 5 Responds also asked Ticketmaster specifically about the added security for ticket transfers and whether it could offer multi-factor authentication, an additional verification method, for sign-in. We have not received any answers to these questions.

SECURE ONLINE ACCOUNTS

Eva Velasquez of the Identity Theft Resource Center said companies should make multifactor authentication an option for customers.

“Companies are under the impression that introducing friction is a bad thing. This goes beyond Ticketmaster, airlines or companies like that,” Velasquez said.

“We have to send the message to companies that we accept these tensions. We understand that it is important to protect ourselves and we will not necessarily move our business elsewhere,” Velasquez added.

Anyone who has a Ticketmaster account can log in and change their password. Do not use an account that you have used before or for another online account. Follow the same steps to protect your personal email.

For more information from the Federal Trade Commission on creating a strong password, click here.

You can read the ITRC recommendations via this link.

NBC 5 Responds is committed to investigating your concerns and getting your money back. Our goal is to provide you with answers and, if possible, solutions and a solution. Call us at 844-5RESPND (844-573-7763) or fill out our customer complaint form.