Feds bust ticket brokers accused of snapping up millions of Beyonc, Post Malone and other tickets in billion-dollar scheme
A California ticket broker is facing a federal lawsuit allegedly spending more than a billion dollars to amass millions of tickets to Beyoncé and Post Malone concerts, among other big-name acts, to resell at exorbitant prices.The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday that they sued San Diego-based REPS & Company, which describes itself as a “data and technology centric company in the entertainment industry.”The company and its executives — CEO Ryan Pancheri, President Brian Archibald and COO Nicholas Totagrande — are accused of violating the the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, which outlaws anyone from circumventing a website’s online limits on the number of tickets purchased.“The Justice Department is committed to holding accountable individuals and businesses that drive up the cost of event tickets by illegally exceeding ticket purchase limits and reselling those unlawfully obtained tickets with exorbitant markups,” said Assistant Attorney General Brett A.Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.
“Working alongside the FTC, we will continue to enforce the BOTS Act to protect consumers from such conduct.”According to the complaint, since 2022 REPS has purchased more than the ticket limit for at least 83,500 events, many of them in high demand, including concerts by Beyoncé, Luke Bryan and Post Malone.The company spent more than $1.3 billion to amass more than 18.5 million tickets for the events, generating at least $120.8 million in profit by reselling them on platforms like Stubhub, SeatGeek and other secondary marketplaces, prosecutors claimed.The FTC highlighted one example in which REPS allegedly generated $833,000 in profit by using 1,300 accounts to purchase 7,624 tickets to just one Beyoncé Renaissance tour concert in Kansas City in 2023.“REPS’ entire business model is focused on trying to game the ticket-purchasing system in order to obtain as many tickets as possible to resell at inf...