How to avoid ticket scams that can shake you off Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Miami

You spent eras on Wednesday trying to secure tickets to the opening shows of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour in Miami — and came up waitlisted or ticket-less after hours on Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan website.

If, like thousands of fellow Swifties, you failed to scoop up tickets for the three October 2024 Miami shows that open the second leg of the record-setting Eras Tour, you may be tempted to buy tickets from a secondary market.

Be careful.

The anticipation to get a seat at this tour runs high. It’s forecast to become the most lucrative tour ever with a likely $1.5 billion in ticket sales benchmark, according to Fortune, eclipsing Elton John’s June-concluded Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour and its $939 million haul.

After several earlier hints, during the last performance of the tour’s first leg at SoFi Stadium in Southern California Wednesday night, the 33-year-old Swift announced her next “Taylor’s Version” album re-recording would be “1989,” a 2014 landmark named for her birth year.

“Here we are, on the last night of the U.S. leg of the Eras tour, in the eighth month of the year, on the ninth day (of the month),” Swift said as cover art for “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” due Oct. 27, flashed on gigantic screens, USA Today reported.

We can only imagine the excitement South Florida fans experience if Swift announces the final “Taylor’s Version” project in her six-album reclamation series from the Hard Rock Stage in Miami Gardens — “Reputation” or “Taylor Swift.” We’re betting the timing favors the latter debut recording that was originally released in October 2006.

Anyhow, you want to be at those Miami shows but ticket scams abound.

“Consumers should be aware that even reputable sites like StubHub or SeatGeek list speculative tickets for sale before an event is placed on sale by an artist. That means that the seller is selling a ticket before they actually have the ticket in hand and they are betting they can fulfill the ticket order. If they can’t fulfill the order, more reputable sites will offer a credit for the ticket or an order refund, but the fan is still left without a ticket and no way of getting in to see the show,” a Ticketmaster rep said in an email sent to the Miami Herald earlier this week.

Here’s what to know:

Protect yourself from ticket scams

“It’s all soooo complicated! Why can’t we just camp out at Spec’s? We have a 10-year-old chomping at the bit,” Vero Beach real estate broker and mom Alexa Garrido Dupuis teased in a Facebook thread Wednesday about the old ways South Florida fans bought concert tickets via overnight camp-outs at now long-gone record stores. She failed to score tickets during the Ticketmaster Verified Fans sale.

Many may turn to the resale market over the next 14 months. Some could wind up with counterfeit or no tickets at all. Some popular sites set up security measures to help ward off scammers.

At StubHub, “there’s no incentive for anyone to attempt to sell a ticket they don’t have, as they will not be paid unless the buyer gets into the event successfully,” a StubHub rep said. “They can also be charged penalty fees and banned for any abuse of our policies.”

StubHub created a site for Taylor Swift Eras Tour given the interest. The page details seller and buyer tips and also safety measures at http://stubhub.com/tickettips

How to avoid fraud and get better resale prices

▪ Avoid buying off the street or on social media when you don’t know the person— use a trusted service. Don’t pay with cash, money transfer or payment apps since it’s harder or impossible to track your purchase — you may not be able to recoup your money if there are issues with the tickets. Pay Pal is a better idea because transactions can be tracked. Ticketmaster, as the official retailer, is safe. StubHub has security measures, like a FanProtect Guarantee that backs each purchase and claims to have accessible customer service when there’s an issue.

▪ Watch out for scams when you are not on a regulated site with a guarantee. Make sure you’re getting a link to an actual Ticketmaster mobile ticket from the seller. “If the deal is too good to be true, it’s probably not true,” StubHub says.

▪ Don’t give your credit card information over the phone to people you don’t know, according to a Ticketmaster blog that warns of scams. “Be cautious when purchasing tickets from unknown individuals — especially if they ask for a method that’s a direct transfer of money and doesn’t clearly specify you’re making a purchase. Same goes for giving someone your credit card information over the phone, which is never recommended,” Ticketmaster warned.

▪ Ticketmaster says common scams include asking for an Amazon Gift Card, iTunes Gift Card, money order or any other third-party gift card as a form of payment in exchange for tickets.

▪ You may also be asked to wire funds as a form of payment in exchange for tickets or “to go to a store and buy a gift card.” Don’t do it.

▪ Ticketmaster suggests using mobile tickets, so be wary if someone wants to sell you a paper or printed ticket. They could be counterfeit. Mobile tickets sold through Ticketmaster have bar codes that continually refresh to help verify they are the real deal.

▪ When you do get your tickets digitally, download them to your phone’s wallet so they are readily accessed, even without an internet connection.

▪ If a seller is too eager to sell and asks you what dates you are looking for and that they have tickets for multiple dates, you need to calm down, to quote a “Lover” album hit you’re likely going to hear at the concert. This behavior sounds like a scam, says a Swiftie expert with the Cincinnati Enquirer. They should be able to tell you specifically upfront what day they have tickets for, how many, and what the seat numbers are.

▪ If a seller is selling too cheap, or below cost, and seems too excited, be wary. The tickets might not be real. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, seats for the Eras Tour cost between $49 to $449 before fees, with VIP packages ranging from $199 to $899.

▪ Ask a seller you don’t know or from an unregulated site to take a screen shot of the tickets they are sending via their Ticketmaster app at the time of your chat before you send them any form of payment. You can then have a better idea if the tickets are legit.

▪ Don’t rush. Though we bet demand will stay high after this initial rush and a week or two before the October 2024 dates, you may find tickets in your budget. Consider single tickets because they are harder to sell. Perhaps weekday shows rather than weekend. These sometimes go for a lower price, StubHub says.