A year after losing $1,600 on fraudulent Taylor Swift tickets, an Ontario mother got a second chance to give her 15-year-old daughter the surprise of a lifetime.
“It’s the best feeling ever,” Einav Feldman told CTV News Toronto at an RBC branch in Maple, Ont. on Tuesday morning, minutes after her daughter was given two – legitimate – tickets for one of the Toronto tour dates in November. “I waited for this day for so long.”
Last August, Einav’s daughter, Maya Feldman, had made a single request to her mother before leaving for summer camp: If the iconic singer-songwriter announced her Canadian Eras Tour dates, "please, please, please get tickets," Feldman said.
Einav signed up for a verified fan account – along with an estimated 31 million others – in the hopes of fulfilling her daughter’s request but was waitlisted.
READ MORE: Ontario mother scammed $1,600 trying to buy her daughter tickets for Taylor Swift's Toronto concert
So, she turned to social media and found an account advertising four tickets for sale.
The X account, which went by the username 'Steph Rose,’ had existed since 2011, showed an image of a young blonde woman, and had its location set to Toronto.
“Obviously, knowing there are scams out there, there was something holding me back,” Feldman said.
But, when she pictured the smile on Maya’s face, Einav said she decided to reach out.
Within minutes, she got a reply with a screen grab of four Ticketmaster tickets and a request for Einav to provide her email address, so she could receive the transfer.
That day, Feldman e-transferred $1,600 to the supposed seller. However, she soon received an email stating that an additional $250 fee was required before the tickets could be sent.
That’s when Einav realized she had been scammed. She said that she asked for her money back but received radio silence in response.
“As a parent you just want to make your kid happy,” Einav told CTV News Toronto after realizing she’d been scammed last summer. At the time, Einav was still waiting to break the bad news to Maya.
“I’ve been sitting here [...], sad, not knowing how to tell my daughter,” she said.
After the story was published, RBC and Avion Rewards reached out to CTV News Toronto with a proposal to surprise Maya and Einav with legitimate tickets.
On Tuesday, their plan came to fruition.
Maya was under the impression she was accompanying Einav on an errand to the bank to use an ATM. Upon their arrival, Maya was approached by a bank representative with a Taylor Swift friendship bracelet and the opportunity to ‘enter a giveaway’ for a pair of Eras Tour tickets. To do so, she was told she'd need to answer a set of Taylor-themed questions on camera.
While the cameras were rolling, it was revealed that the sweepstakes had been a setup all along – and that the tickets were in fact hers.
“Are we actually [going]? Like, for real? Like, for real, for real, for real?” Maya asked, before embracing Einav.
Swift is scheduled to perform six shows in Toronto this November but tickets sold out instantly. Tickets on the secondary market, meanwhile, have been listed for thousands of dollars each.
Since being released to the public last summer, there have been widespread reports of fraudulent tickets in some markets due to the demand for the record-breaking tour. Melanie McGovern, director of public relations at Better Business Bureaus, said their scam tracker had received 46 reports of fake Swift tickets for U.S. shows between June and August of last year, prior to the Toronto ticket release.
“We’d really put last year behind us, we’d forgotten about it, so when [RBC and Avion Rewards] reached out, I was like, ‘Do I respond, do I not respond? Is it another scam’” Einav said. “And my husband even said ‘Leave it,’ but I had to [respond].”
“And ever since then, I’ve been waiting for this day.”
With files from Hannah Alberga.
