Taylor Swift fans accuse Natick ticket broker of taking their money, not delivering tickets
BOSTON - A mother and daughter have bad blood with a Massachusetts ticket broker who they are accusing of taking their money and not delivering them Taylor Swift tickets.
Andra Charland paid Matthew Calandrello, the owner of Upclosetickets in Natick, $1,200 for Taylor Swift tickets in February. According to text messages, he told her that the tickets would appear in her Ticketmaster account.
As the date for Taylor Swift's May concert at Gillette Stadium grew closer, Charland says she repeatedly asked Calandrello for her tickets.
"I reached back again at the end of April, and he said, oh, at the beginning of May and then I keep reaching out to him and then he kept saying next week, next week, next week," Charland said.
The May show came and went with no tickets for Charland or her 14-year-old daughter, Avery.
"When that day finally came, Avery was really heartbroken," Charland said.
Starting in May, Charland began texting Calandrello demanding a refund.
In May he wrote, "I have no problem giving your money back. It will just take a couple of days as I paid out everything I had on refunds."
Thus far, no refund has come.
Andra is not the only one complaining about Upclosetickets. The Massachusetts Attorney General's office is reviewing six different complaints about Calandrello's company.
Andra says Calandrello put 32 of his customers on a group text chat right before the concert who, she says, collectively paid him tens of thousands of dollars but never got their tickets.
In that thread, Calandrello told the group that due to the nature of the show and lawsuits hitting Ticketmaster his tickets did not come in. He wrote, "One thing I will stress [is that] no one will be out money as I always guarantee my sales."
Calandrello could not be reached at his home by WBZ-TV. His attorney declined to comment.
