FTC alleges group fraudulently flipped Taylor Swift seats on Ticketmaster
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The Federal Trade Commission accused a shadowy group of flooding Ticketmaster with fake accounts to purchase and resell tickets to concerts by Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and other top artists.
The FTC alleged that between Nov. 1, 2022, and Dec. 30, 2023, a core group of three individuals used a network of sites such as Totaltickets, TotallyTix and Front Rose Tix to purchase at least 379,776 tickets from Ticketmaster, spending nearly $57 million. The complaint states they then resold those tickets on secondary marketplaces for nearly $64 million.
The trio allegedly used software to mask IP addresses, purloined credit cards and SIM cards to create fake Ticketmaster accounts. They also enlisted friends and family to create Ticketmaster Verified Fan accounts, giving small sign-up bonuses and kickbacks for creating new accounts.
Senators from both sides of the aisle questioned Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s alleged monopoly, part of the fallout from November’s Taylor Swift on-sale fiasco.
The FTC alleges that the group made $1.2 million from flipping tickets to Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour in 2023 alone. According to the complaint, at a Las Vegas Taylor Swift concert, “Defendants used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets to Taylor Swift’s March 25, 2023, concert at Allegiant Stadium, dramatically exceeding The Eras Tour’s 2023 six-ticket limit. Defendants then marked up and resold these tickets, netting $119,227.21 in revenue.”
For one Bruce Springsteen show at MetLife Stadium on Sept. 1, 2023, “Defendants used 277 different accounts to purchase 1,530 tickets, dramatically exceeding Springsteen and the E Street Band’s four-ticket limit. Defendants marked up and resold these tickets, netting $20,900.84 in revenue.”
The FTC alleges their actions are a violation of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act. Representatives for Ticketmaster parent firm Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment.
While Ticketmaster is not accused of any wrongdoing in the complaint, Swift famously lambasted Ticketmaster after the Eras Tour on-sale fiasco in which many fans were locked out of opportunities to buy tickets and saw seats instantly snapped up and placed on resale markets at many times the face value.
The DOJ, California and other states sued concert behemoth Live Nation, the parent of Ticketmaster, alleging antitrust violations that could force the company to break up.
“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward,” she wrote in a 2022 social media post. “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”
“It really pisses me off that a lot of [fans] feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” Swift added.
The incident prompted rowdy hearings in Congress and a federal antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Although Ticketmaster is not targeted in the complaint, the FTC does include a slide that it says is from a 2018 presentation deck, where Ticketmaster warns of “Serious negative economic impact if we move to 8 ticket limit across the board.” In March, President Trump issued an executive order to combat fraudulent ticket reselling practices.
