The Federal Trade Commission accused a dark group of flood tickets with false accounts to buy and resell tickets for Taylor Swift concerts, Bruce Springsteen and other main artists.
The FTC claimed that between November 1, 2022 and December 30, 2023, a central group of three individuals used a network of sites such as TotalTickets, Totallytix and Front Rose Tix to buy at least 379,776 ticketmaster tickets, spend almost $ 57 million. The complaint establishes that then these tickets resell in the secondary markets for almost $ 64 million.
The trio supposedly used software to mask IP addresses, stolen credit cards and SIM cards to create fake ticketmaster accounts. They also enlisted friends and family to create accounts of verified fans of Ticketmaster, giving small registration bonds and bribes to create new accounts.
The FTC alleges that the group won $ 1.2 million from Vistage Tickets to the Taylor Swift record tour only in 2023. According to the complaint, at a concert of Las Vegas Taylor Swift, “the defendants used 49 different accounts to buy 273 tickets for the March 25 concert of Taylor Swift in the Allegiant stadium, exceed Limit of six of six eras of Eras.
For a Bruce Springsteen show at the Metlife Stadium on September 1, 2023, “the defendants used 277 different accounts to buy 1,530 tickets, dramatically exceeding Springsteen and the limit of four tickets of the E. band.
The FTC alleges that its shares are a violation of the online ticket sales law. The representatives of the Matrix of Ticketmaster Live Nation did not immediately respond a request for comments.
While Ticketmaster is not accused of any irregularity on the complaint, Swift criticized Ticketmaster after the Eras Tour On-Sale fiasco in which many fans were blocked from the opportunities to buy tickets and saw instant seats and placed in the resale markets in many times the nominal value.
“There are a multitude of reasons why people had so much difficulties trying to get tickets and I am trying to discover how this situation can be improved in the future,” he wrote in a publication on the social networks of 2022. “I will not put excuses for anyone because we ask them several times if they could handle this type of demand and assured us that they could.”
“It really bothers me that a lot [fans] I feel that they went through several bear attacks to obtain them, ”added Swift.
The incident caused noisy audiences in Congress and a federal antimonopoly demand against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Although Ticketmaster is not aimed at the complaint, the FTC includes a slide that, according to him, is a 2018 presentation deck, where Ticketmaster warns of “a serious negative economic impact if we move to 8 ticket limits in all areas.” In March, President Trump issued an executive order to combat the resale practices of fraudulent tickets.
