The Federal Trade Commission is suing a ticket broker operation for allegedly using unlawful tactics to exceed ticket purchasing limits for many popular events, including Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and resell the tickets at significantly higher prices, generating millions in revenue.
“President Trump made it clear in his March Executive Order that unscrupulous middlemen who harm fans and jack up prices through anticompetitive methods will hear from us,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. “Today’s action puts brokers on notice that the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers’ purchase limits, ensuring that consumers have an opportunity to buy tickets at fair prices.”
The scheme is operated by Maryland-based ticket broker Key Investment Group and its affiliated companies, which have done business under such names as Epic Seats, TotalTickets.com LLC, and Totally Tix LLC, as well as Key Investment Group’s CEO, Yair D. Rozmaryn, Chief Financial Officer, Elan N. Rozmaryn, and Chief Strategic Officer, Taylor Kurth, according to the FTC’s complaint.
The FTC alleges that the operation uses a variety of tactics to bypass security measures implemented by Ticketmaster to block resellers from violating ticket purchasing limits. These security measures include monitoring whether purchases are associated with verifiable Ticketmaster accounts and unique credit cards and IP addresses. In addition, Ticketmaster sometimes requires purchasers to enter a code sent to their cell phone to verify their accounts.
The complaint alleges that the defendants were often able to bypass these protections by:
- using thousands of Ticketmaster accounts to purchase tickets, including fictitious and third-party accounts that the defendants purchased;
- utilizing thousands of virtual and traditional credit card numbers;
- hiding their identity by using proxy or spoofed IP addresses; and
- using SIM boxes to facilitate the receipt of verification codes sent to the phone numbers associated with the thousands of fake and third-party accounts they used to purchase tickets.
These tactics allowed the defendants to purchase at least 379,776 tickets in just over a year from Ticketmaster at a cost of nearly $57 million. Defendants resold a portion of those tickets on secondary marketplaces for approximately $64 million by, in many cases, charging a significant markup to consumers, according to the complaint.
For just one Taylor Swift concert, the defendants allegedly used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets, dramatically exceeding the Eras Tour’s 2023 six-ticket purchase limit per event. They then resold those tickets at a significant markup.
The complaint alleges that the defendants violated the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, which makes it illegal for any person to “circumvent a security measure, access control system, or other technological control or measure on an Internet website or online service that is used by the ticket issuer to enforce posted event ticket limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order rules.”
The Commission vote authorizing the staff to file the complaint was 3-0. The FTC filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Northern Division.
NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the named defendants are violating or are about to violate the law and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court.
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