The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against a ticket broker for allegedly using “illegal means” to purchase nearly 400,000 tickets for a variety of events—including the Taylor Swift Eras Tour—and sell them at inflated prices to the tune of approximately $64 million.
As first reported by Rolling Stone, the lawsuit alleges that Maryland-based broker Key Investment Group violated the seldom-used Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act by using various illegal means to bypass Ticketmaster’s limits on individual ticket purchases. According to the lawsuit, Key Investment Group and its affiliated companies Epic Seats, TotalTickets.com LLC, and Totally Tix LLC then resold those tickets on various platforms (including Ticketmaster) at “a significant markup to consumers.”
The FTC alleges that between November 1st, 2022 and December 30th, 2023, the companies purchased at least 379,776 tickets for approximately $57 million, reselling a portion on the secondary market for roughly $64 million. For the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, the FTC states that the defendants purchased 2,280 tickets to 38 dates of the tour for $774,970.29 and resold them for $1,961,980.65, resulting in a profit of $ 1,187,010.36.
For Bruce Springsteen‘s September 1st, 2023 show at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the companies are accused of using 277 unique accounts to buy 1,530 tickets and selling them for a combined profit of over $20,000. Swift’s tour had a limit of six tickets per person, while Springsteen’s show limited purchasers to four tickets each.
To do this, the government argues that KIG and its affiliates used “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.”
FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in a statement that the lawsuit targets “unscrupulous middlemen who harm fans and jack up prices through anticompetitive methods.” Citing President Donald Trump‘s March executive order aimed at ticket gouging, which called for more rigorous enforcement of the BOTS Act, Ferguson continued that “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.”
In its own statement, a representative for KIG argued that this suit “threatens to dismantle the secondary ticket market for live events, further consolidating power in the hands of the industry’s largest monopoly.” The last line appears to be a reference to Ticketmaster, which is currently facing an antitrust lawsuit from the Department of Justice filed last spring.
“In an unprecedented move, 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,” the KIG rep continued. “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 portrayal is both deceptive and malicious. Key Investment Group is prepared to vigorously defend itself against this clear example of regulatory overreach.”
Late last month, KIG filed a preemptive lawsuit against the FTC over its investigation. An FTC spokesperson declined to comment to Rolling Stone about KIG’s preemptive lawsuit.
This news comes a week after Taylor Swift announced her next album, The Life of A Showgirl. Though the ticketing industry was plagued with regulatory issues long before it, Swift’s Eras Tour brought those systemic problems to the attention of governments around the world. Hopefully, the U.S. secondary ticket market—valued at roughly $10 billion in 2025—is fixed or at least a little less broken by the time she goes on tour again.