An Adelaide family has been left heartbroken and out of pocket after being forced to buy Olivia Rodrigo tickets twice just hours before her Melbourne Guts show.
Amanda and Ian McAloon detailed their heartbreak after undergoing a horrifying ordeal which cost them almost $3,000 after falling victim to cruel scammers.
Speaking to the Courier Mail, the couple said they had bought their die-hard fan daughters Emily, 19, Chloe, 17, and Imogen, 14, tickets to see Olivia’s October 10 show at the Rod Laver Arena.
They claimed they originally managed to snap up three VIP tickets for $450 each and dropped their daughters at the venue 15 hours before the show so they could soak up the excitement.
But after waiting for around two hours in line at the venue, Emily allegedly then checked the tickets when she noticed they were under two different names.
‘I googled it and found out that if it’s not in your name, someone has done something to the tickets,’ Ms McAloon told the publication, saying the realisation made her ‘heart drop’.
She said her husband had earlier been unable to access his Ticketek account and only later realised that it had been hacked.
After being told by police to fill out a cyber crime form online, Ms McAloon said her husband rushed to a ticketing office where they were told the tickets had been stolen and resold on Ticketek Marketplace.
An Adelaide family has been left heartbroken and out of pocket after being forced to buy Olivia Rodrigo tickets twice just hours before her Melbourne Guts show (Olivia is pictured in August)
‘He realised they were resold online for $1 each,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know how I was going to tell the girls.’
The couple managed to secure another three VIP tickets remaining for the show, which the parents purchased for their daughters, taking their concert total for both sets of tickets up to $2,750.
A Ticketek spokesperson told the Courier Mail that all e-commerce platforms were experiencing a huge surge in phishing scams.
They said customers should immediately contact police and Ticketek customer service if they believe they are victims of stolen or misappropriated tickets, or they bought fraudulent second-hand tickets.
‘We would also like to reiterate that Ticketek accounts or individual data has not been compromised,’ the spokesperson said.
They added that customers should also change our update passwords every six months.
Amanda and Ian McAloon detailed their heartbreak after undergoing a horrifying ordeal which cost them almost $3,000 after falling victim to cruel scammers (Olivia is pictured in April)
Olivia put on four incredible performances for her Australian fans in Melbourne and is now gearing up for her hotly-anticipated Sydney shows.
She is next set to perform at the Qudos Bank Arena on October 17, 18, 21, and 22 – which are also her final stops on her Australian leg of her Guts tour.
However, it was not all smooth-sailing for Olivia at her Melbourne shows as she fell through a hole in the stage in a shocking gaffe at the Rod Laver Arena.
At her fourth and final show in the city, Olivia suddenly disappeared through a floor hatch, which had seemingly been accidentally left open from an earlier entrance.
Thankfully, Olivia managed to catch her hands on the edge of the stage and clamber back up on stage, sharing her shock at the unexpected fall with the crowds.
Sounding shaken, she assured her fans she was unharmed as she said: ‘Oh my God! That was fun, I’m OK! Sometimes there is just a hole in the stage, OK… where was I?’
She quickly recovered from the dramatic fall and carried on with her performance as she proved herself to be every inch the professional.
