Charlene Kilinski declares she is a proud “Swiftie over Fifty.”
There are several groups with similar names found all over social media. They connect Taylor Swift fans with other fans to chat, hang out and enjoy everything about the music icon.
“Swifties are unlike any other fans I’ve known,” Kilinski said. “They are kind, loyal and the most welcoming, ready to create new friendships in the name of love for her music, writing ability and sheer talent.”
Fans all over the world gathered for Swift’s Eras tour, which spanned 51 cities across 21 countries, with 149 performances between March 2023 and December 2024. It scored more than $2 billion in ticket sales alone.
Many fans, though, found ticket prices for U.S.-based shows to be cost prohibitive. So they got on planes, rented hotel rooms and bought tickets to international shows for less than the cost of a ticket closer to home.
Kilinski, of Wall, was among them. She said she bypassed costly shows in Miami, Indianapolis and New Orleans, concerned she’d never get to see the tour.
But a few days before Swift was set to perform in Toronto, Canada, in mid-November, Kilinski found a hard-to-resist ticket for sale on Viagogo, a ticket resale company that’s owned by reselling giant StubHub. It was for the front row of an elevated section that would allow her to sit during the more than three-hour-long performance — she had scoliosis surgery as a child so standing for long periods can be difficult — and still have an unobstructed view of the show.
“My husband really wanted me to go, saying things like, ‘Hey, if the Beatles were able to get together and tour, he would be going in a heartbeat,’” Kilinski said.
She booked it, paying $2,749.95, including fees, for a single ticket for the Nov. 15 show. The ticket purchase was confirmed in the Viagogo app.
Kilinski made her hotel and airline reservations, and off she went.
“Being a `Swifty over Fifty,’ I had an entire online community of friends to meet up with, trade friendship bracelets with and pre-party with once arriving,” she said.
Charlene Kilinski shows off some of the friendship bracelets she made and traded while waiting for the Taylor Swift concert in Toronto.Charlene Kilinski
On the day of the concert, around 10 a.m., she opened the Viagogo app to download the ticket, she said. She had a big day ahead with plans to meet up with other Swifties and she wanted to make sure her ticket was ready to go.
“This is where the nightmare began to unfold,” she said. “The app showed the ticket ready to download, but each time I would attempt that, I would receive an error.”
She said she tried Viagogo’s live chat help feature, and when she got a live agent, the agent recommend she call in.
“I did as instructed with my heart now pounding in my chest, palms sweating and tears beginning to choke me up,” she said. The representative told her to keep an eye on her email and to be available in case a representative needed to speak to her.
She skipped the day’s celebratory activities and she waited. She fretted. She called her husband.
Then Viagogo told her the ticket would be in the app at 4 p.m. But 4 p.m. came and went, with no ticket.
She called Viagogo again, and that’s when she got the bad news.
“The seller was not releasing the ticket and now they were going to look for a comparable ticket for me or provide a full refund,” she said. She said she had been looking all day for a seat that was equivalent to the one she was promised — just in case — but none were available.
“I was ready to give up. I opted for the refund,” Kilinski said, and she got a refund confirmation in writing.
But her husband told her not to give up. Keep looking for seats, he said. She opened the app one more time.
“I see the option of `instant download’ for a seat on the floor in the first row, but in a back section,” she said. “It is $800 less than my first ticket.”
She jumped and got the ticket and loved every second of the show.
But not the struggle to get a refund.
BROKEN PROMISES
Several days after Kilinski came home, her account still didn’t show any refunds.
All her subsequent efforts yielded more “broken promises,” she said.
Over the next two weeks, she received different answers from Viagogo representatives: The order is being researched. The refund is being processed. Your case is with the finance department. Someone will call you.
Kilinski said she was still waiting by Dec. 10, and having enough, she asked Bamboozled for help.
We reached out to Viagogo to ask about the refund, and the next day, Kilinski received an email from the company. It said its attempt to refund her payment to ApplePay had “failed,” and it asked her to enter her credit card number into the app as a “default payment method.”
She made the change.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Kilinski said of the again-promised refund.
Viagogo (which uses all lowercase letters for its name in marketing materials) said the delay was because of “a rare system issue” and it confirmed the refund was processed.
“At viagogo, we prioritise ensuring fans have the best experience,” said an email from the company, which was founded in London and is headquartered in Switzerland. “We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.”
But then Kilinski got a call from the company, asking her to add her banking information so they could send the refund directly to her bank. It also offered her a future credit voucher worth $550.
Then Kilinski saw the credit to her account.
“The gesture of goodwill does change things although I hope to not need to use a third party reseller again,” she said. “If I find myself in that predicament, I would consider it an opportunity for them to redeem themselves BUT it would still need to be an instant download ticket and not a mobile download delivery.”
Or maybe, just maybe, Taylor Swift’s next tour will be in Kilinski’s future.
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on X at @KPMueller.
