Re-Hacking Into Taylor Swift’s Website
Hi Bob,I’m the owner of gotthetix.com – according to Taylor Swift we broke into her official website. Taylor is a great girl and accomplished performer – I have nothing but respect for her. But I shall kindly disagree with her statement. Probably would go as far as to call it a complete bullshit…
We are based in Connecticut:
137 Bolton Road
Vernon, CT 06066 USAgotthetix.com is a legitimate reseller of tickets – concerts, sports and theatre, not just Taylor Swift, of course. $5 million worth of tickets sold this year so far. Yes, some tickets are pretty expensive, exorbitant prices as in Taylor’s case, but that’s simply because there’s a huge demand for her tickets. We just provide the platform for resellers to list their tickets and charge a fee on every transaction – that’s how we survive. As for hacking into Taylor Swift’s website – I have no idea how to do that. We drive traffic through google advertising, no hacking involved.
Anyways, I simply wanted to clear my name. Just because it’s Taylor Swift, doesn’t mean she can go ahead and accuse anybody of hacking her website. Any proof of that really? She must have seen our pay-per-click ad in google – we do bid on comcasttix name – and decided that we broke into her site. One would expect a 19 year old to be a little more internet-savvy.
Best Regards,
Vasyl Pshyk
___________________________________________
Bob,I am a ticket broker in the NY area. Taylor isn’t lying, she was hacked. The same thing happened this summer on livenation.com during the DMB onsale and the Phish onsale right on livenation.com.
As a broker I brought this to the attention of the primary ticketer (Live Nation) myself.
You would click on a buy tickets button and it would redirect to coasttocoasttickets.com.
If you want to confirm the Live Nation hack and they are willing to admit anything, Nathan Hubbard, President of ticketing should be able to give you more info.
If you want to talk to the head of ticket network (The ultimate owner of gotthhetix and coasttocoasttickets as well as 100’s (if not thousands) of look a like and redirect sites), they are based in Vernon, CT and the President of that company is Don Vacaro, publisher of ticketnews, owner of ticket network and the organizer of "The Ticket Summit" which will be holding its next convention at the Waldorf in NYC this January.
You should stop in if you can.
If you republish by any chance. Please leave my name and company name off as I am just a pretty small regional broker.
___________________________________________
From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Vasyl PshykI received an e-mail prior to receiving yours that stated that gotthetix.com and coasttocoasttickets.com are both owned by Ticket Network, also located in Vernon, CT.
This person also states he confirmed with Live Nation that on sales with Dave Matthews and Phish on livenation.com had redirects to coasttocoasttickets.com
Are these allegations true?
___________________________________________
From: Vasyl Pshyk
To: Bob LefsetzI’m a partner with TicketNetwork – I own gotthetix but the inventory is from ticketnetwork. Basically I am an affiliate. Can’t say anything about coast to coast – you’d have to contact them.
In order to redirect onsales one has to gain control of the website that’s initiating onsales – literally hack into livenation.com or comcasttix or ticketmaster. First of all that’s practically impossible. Second, every website keeps track of what’s happening there – so called logs, so it should be easy to prove that someone messed with the site. If livenation has these logs indicating someone broke into it – they should take action. Otherwise it’s just words. Same with Taylor Swift and her claim.
Best,
Vasyl
I did a domain name search of coasttocoasttickets.com.
The address was in Austin, Texas.
I e-mailed the contact listed and asked whether Coast To Coast was owned by Ticket Network. I have yet to receive a response.
I e-mailed Nathan Hubbard at Live Nation to find out if the allegation that DMB and Phish onsales at livenation.com had been hacked and buyers had been redirected to coasttocoasttickets.com was true. I have yet to receive a response.
I did a domain name search on gotthetix.com. The registrant was DomainsByProxy, located in Scottsdale, Arizona.
I did a domain name search on TicketNetwork.com. The address was on 137 Bolton Road, in Vernon, CT.
So what exactly is going on here?
I point you to a "New York Times" article entitled: "Pssst! Want a Ticket? Hey, I’m Legit. Really" Published on August 28, 2009, it appears to have had no traction whatsoever amongst the ticket buying public. In other words, the public would rather just hate on Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Or, perhaps, the public knows the only way to get a good seat is to use a broker. Since so many of the good seats never go on sale to the general public anyway. The reason? A plethora of holdbacks, a plethora of pre-sales. And the brokers..?
How many tickets do the brokers get? And how do they get them?
Don Vaccaro stated at the end of the "New York Times" article:
"’I know that you’ve all heard stories,’ he recalled saying, ‘about box-office managers getting cash payoffs, primary ticket outlets selling their tickets directly to brokers, managers selling their tickets to brokers. And I just want to dispel those rumors right now by confirming that they’re all true.’"
So what is the truth here? With regard to ticket buyers being redirected to a scalper site when trying to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift’s Philadelphia shows at the Wachovia Center?
First and foremost, those tickets were never sold by Ticketmaster. Comcast sells the tickets for the Wachovia Center.
And yes, when one clicked on those shows on Taylor Swift’s Website prior to my publication of the e-mail in Thursday November 19th’s "Mailbag", one was directed to a scalper site. Was it gotthetix.com? Unfortunately, I did not save a screen shot. Maybe Ms. Swift’s Web team did.
As for the allegations above that this type of event occurred previously, with DMB and Phish, with a hack and a redirection to a scalper site… I have no independent verification of that fact, all I have is the above e-mail. And how trustworthy is someone who misspells Mr. Vaccaro’s name?
Then again, how trustworthy is Vasyl Pshyk when he states that he’s just a Ticket Network affiliate?
Well, if one reads the "New York Times" article, one can see that all the broker sites are linked, that other brokers are affiliated with Ticket Network. Just check the tickets available for Ms. Swift at the Wachovia Center. They’re exactly the same on ticketnetwork.com, coasttocoasttickets.com and gotthetix.com.
So, maybe Mr. Pshyk is just an affiliate.
Then again, the physical address he provides above is identical to that for TicketNetwork. Are they both operating out of the same headquarters but completely disconnected? And, in his first e-mail, Mr. Pshyk states: "We just provide the platform for resellers to list their tickets and charge a fee on every transaction – that’s how we survive." That would tend to indicate that Mr. Pshyk actually works for Ticket Network…
But, there’s no hard evidence that Mr. Pshyk hacked into Taylor Swift’s Web page. And, until someone comes forth with that evidence, one must agree with him that he’s innocent. That’s the law, innocent until proven guilty. Then again, we’re not in a court of law, we’re in the arena of public opinion. And the public appears to be ignorant. People are just hating on Ticketmaster.
Then again, how innocent are Ticketmaster and Irving Azoff? There was that article in the "Wall Street Journal" delineating how Mr. Azoff had tried to do a deal with the scalpers, an initiative that was entitled "Project Showtime":
Once again, this revelation got little traction in the straight press (maybe because the initial article was behind a pay wall).
Many people know a lot, and they’re not talking. Why is that?
The artists are not accounting for all tickets at their shows, stating when they were offered, who they were offered to and what price they were sold at.
Ticketmaster is stating that its hands are tied by the acts.
The brokers just say they’re providing a service. And their customers don’t mind paying high prices to sit close.
In other words, these people like things the way they are. Sure, they’re fighting amongst themselves for a bigger piece of the pie. But they don’t want the general public to know what’s truly going on whatsoever.
A legislative solution?
Did you follow the Louis Messina shenanigans? Where on television he accused Ticketmaster of scalping tickets
and then after the piece aired he claimed that this was the pre-Azoff Ticketmaster and that Irving’s cleaning up the business?
Mr. Messina said this is the last time he’s ever going on the record about ticketing. That doesn’t bode well for an ultimate solution.
As for the TV station twisting Mr. Messina’s words, quoting him out of context… When I sat down with the interviewer, we talked for an hour, I had no idea the focus was on Keith Urban and Taylor Swift. I very carefully walked the line of truth, but I was quoted out of context too.
But the TV station wanted its ratings. What, with the CMAs in town and then Bruce Springsteen.
So, everybody seems to have his own agenda.
And it’s only the insiders who truly know what’s going on.
And, as stated above, they’re not talking. They’re certainly not speaking the truth.
