The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued a ticket reseller over an allegedly multi-million dollar scalping ring targeting major concerts and events, including Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.”
The lawsuit, first reported by Rolling Stone, alleges the Maryland-based ticket broker Key Investment Group violated the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS Act) by bypassing Ticketmaster’s security protocols to purchase tickets beyond the allotted limit and then reselling them on secondary marketplaces at “a significant markup to consumers.”
Key Investment Group — along with affiliated companies including Epic Seats, TotalTickets.com LLC, and Totally Tix LLC — is accused of using “thousands of fictitious Ticketmaster accounts, thousands of virtual and traditional credit card numbers, proxy or spoofed IP addresses, and SIM banks to bypass or otherwise avoid security measures, access control systems, or other technological controls or measures on Ticketmaster’s websites that would have otherwise blocked or prevented them from violating Ticketmaster’s posted ticket purchase limits.”
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According to the complaint, the defendants purchased nearly 380,000 tickets for about $57 million between November 1st, 2022, and December 30th, 2023, and later resold them for approximately $64 million.
In the case of Swift’s “Eras Tour,” the FTC claims the defendants used this method in 2023 to bypass the six-ticket limit and purchase 2,280 tickets across all 38 dates. They allegedly resold the tickets for $1,961,980.65 after purchasing them for $744,970.29, netting $1,217,010.36.
Similarly, the complaint alleges that the defendants used 277 different accounts to purchase 1,530 tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s MetLife Stadium show on September 1st, 2023, far exceeding the four-ticket limit.
In a statement, FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said the lawsuit targets “unscrupulous middlemen who harm fans and jack up prices through anticompetitive methods” and put brokers on notice that “the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers’ purchase limits.”
A representative for Key Investment Group accused the FTC of overreach in a fiery response, warning of the lawsuit’s impact on the secondary ticketing market while handing over more power to “the industry’s largest monopoly.” The latter is likely an apparent reference to Live Nation, which is facing a Department of Justice lawsuit of its own.
“The FTC has twisted the intent of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, a law designed to target malicious software, into a weapon against legitimate businesses and consumers,” reads the statement. “Under the FTC’s interpretation, anyone who purchases more than four tickets or uses more than one account could be deemed in violation of federal law. That outcome is not only illogical, it’s absurd. Even more troubling, the FTC misleadingly characterizes Key Investment Group’s use of standard internet browsers to purchase tickets as equivalent to deploying unlawful software.”
This isn’t the first government action where Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” has played a central role. The disastrous 2022 Ticketmaster pre-sale for the tour is widely seen as a catalyst for the aforementioned DOJ lawsuit.
In other Taylor Swift news, the pop superstar recently announced her upcoming album, The Life of a Showgirl, is dropping on Friday, October 3rd.
