PITTSBURGH — It was the surprise of the year for this Venango County family.
“It would be Patrick Queen’s first game back against the Ravens, thought this would be perfect and then thinking this could be our Christmas gift to the kids going for more of the experience than an object,” said Stephanie Lehman.
Tickets were purchased for the Steelers’ upcoming home game back in June, the kids finally learned of the present Sunday night; but then that all quickly changed.
“I called my husband crying because the kids were so happy and so excited. We worked hard we are like everybody else we are struggling, but we saved and are working so hard to give our kids this day and it’s gone in 20 minutes,” Lehman said.
Lehman woke up to more than 800 spam emails, buried in it all was a successful transfer of her Steelers tickets to someone she didn’t know.
“I didn’t get any emails until it was done, there was no two-step verification, there are so many more apps out there with restaurants, that you have go through two-step verification through the process and I didn’t get anything until it was done and you are just overwhelmed,” Lehman said.
Lehman reached out to 11 Investigates for help as her worst fear was not being able to give her children this experience.
“My son is 17 and he doesn’t get excited about anything but that’s all he’s talked about since last night,” Lehman said.
11 Investigates reached out to Ticketmaster and the Steelers for help and within hours, Lehman’s tickets were returned to her Ticketmaster account and her family is heading to the game this Sunday to cheer on the Black and Gold.
We asked Ticketmaster about the process and they released the following statement.
“Overall, our digital ticketing innovations have greatly reduced fraud compared to the days of paper tickets and duplicated PDFs. Having that digital history is also how we are able to investigate the situation and restore fans’ tickets. The top way fans can protect themselves is setting a strong unique password for all accounts – especially for their personal email which is where we often see security issues originate. 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,” a spokesperson with Ticketmaster told Channel 11.
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