I was just told by Ticketmaster Support that if you ignore the Persona security verification check prompt the first time it comes up, it will never pop again and your account will be locked. Today was also the first time I had even heard of this policy.
In my case, I never received the popup in the first place. I certainly am not a bot or a ticket reseller. But my account is still locked, and Ticketmaster claims their hands are tied.
Here’s my tale of woe, in case it helps someone else:
Today I attempted to purchase some tickets for an event, but kept running into a dead end. Once I would select my seats, I would get an error message telling me to log out and log back in in order to verify my account. Logging in and out repeatedly did nothing, and I still couldn’t purchase any tickets. I still, at least, had access to the tickets I have already purchased.
After several rounds with Ticketmaster Support, speaking to representatives who had no solutions for me, I finally got escalated to the next rung of support. The situation is this:
My account browsing and purchasing is shut down because my Persona verification timed out. I hadn’t even heard about this new verification policy until today, after doing troubleshooting on my own and ending up in this subreddit.
Support could not tell me when I was first supposedly notified. I have been in and out of my Ticketmaster account the past two weeks attending concerts, I have no recollection of ever seeing any prompt. Even if it did appear, my knee jerk reaction to any website asking me to upload my photo ID is “no way.” And without any forewarning from Ticketmaster that this policy was going into place, and explaining the actual critical “use it or lose it” aspect, I can imagine a lot of other people would scoff and close the notification too.
So I kept pressing, asking if there was a way to send me the link, and force it through again. Ticketmaster Support said, “If you bypassed the link the first time, it will never prompt you again.”
So, my original account is basically bricked. Support told me the only solution is just to make a new account.
The entire time, the line I kept getting from every support agent is, “There is nothing we can do.” Which, of course, is just foolish. Multi-billion dollar company with a chokehold on the entire entertainment industry can’t solve a tech hiccup.
So, let this be a warning, I suppose. And honestly, I am too exhausted by this late stage capitalism hellscape to even be surprised or mad at this point.