Chicago woman says thieves stole Usher United Center tickets from Ticketmaster account

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A Chicago woman says all eight of her tickets to see Usher were stolen right out of her Ticketmaster account.

The Usher: Past, Present, Future tour concert is Thursday, Oct. 31, and she still doesn't know if she'll get them back in time.

Jazmin Johnson and her seven friends couldn't wait to see the legendary artist perform at the United Center, but it all came to a halt when she got an alert from Ticketmaster.

"I had a notification from Ticketmaster saying that my eight tickets had been transferred. Someone I have never met, do not know," she said. "Immediately thinking, wait, what? How could this have gotten transferred? I know I didn't initiate a transfer."

The tickets were gone from her account, taken by a stranger.

READ MORE: Man warns others after being scammed by fake Ticketmaster customer service

Johnson said she contact Ticketmaster on Oct. 1, and was told they'd look into her case and get back to her in three to five days. But she got worried when she saw others frustrated on social media. She said dozens of others claimed their tickets were stolen too.

"People were saying that Ticketmaster promised them the same thing, that they would work on it in three to five days and some of those people missed their event and still had not been refunded for their tickets," Johnson said.

One woman who spoke to our sister station in Los Angeles, KABC, said after purchasing tickets to see Korn at BMO Stadium in LA, she got a similar email.

"I received an email saying our tickets had been transferred to somebody that we don't know. We've already booked the flights, hotels, rental cars, all that stuff," said Breauna Hannon.

Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, revealed it was the victim of a massive cyberattack a few months ago which compromised user data.

Johnson wonders if that attack could be related to her Usher tickets being stolen.

RELATED: Live Nation, Ticketmaster's parent company, sued in monopoly lawsuit

"Just a month ago, someone bought a college football ticket in my name and I changed my password after that incident. For that happen again, and I had a strong password, that sounds like something happening with Ticketmaster," she said.

Ticketmaster said passwords were not exposed in this year's data breach, adding what they're seeing is scammers accessing a fan's email account.

In a statement, the company said in part, "Scammers are looking for new cheats across every industry, and tickets will always be a target because they are valuable, so Ticketmaster is constantly investing in new security enhancements to safeguard fans...Overall, our digital ticketing innovations have greatly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and duplicated PDFs."

As for Johnson's tickets, after the I-Team got involved all eight were restored.

"So right before you came, the tickets just magically appeared in my account," she said.

She's just hoping they'll stay there.

"I'm still a little scared that this might happen again," said Johnson.

Ticketmaster said the top ways fans can protect themselves is setting a strong, unique password for all accounts; especially for your personal email, which is where Ticketmaster said they often see security issues originate.

But Johnson said she had just changed her passwords before the hack occurred and is urging Ticketmaster to take a closer look at its systems.