The Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) is suing a Maryland-based ticket dealer named Key Funding Group for allegedly utilizing pretend accounts to purchase up lots of of hundreds of reside occasion tickets from Ticketmaster after which reselling them for a big markup, profiting hundreds of thousands of {dollars} within the course of. Right here’s all the pieces we all know concerning the case.
In its lawsuit, the FTC accuses Key Funding Group, that additionally operates as Entrance Rose Tix, Epic Seats, Completely Tix, and TotalTickets.com, of “utilizing illegal ways to exceed ticket buying limits for a lot of widespread occasions, together with Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and resell the tickets at considerably increased costs, producing hundreds of thousands in income.”
The FTC accuses the corporate of violating the Higher On-line Ticket Gross sales (BOTS) Act by utilizing an online of spoofed IP addresses, pretend accounts, and a number of SIM playing cards to garner a giant chunk of tickets on the Ticketmaster platform. Key Funding Group was due to this fact in a position to bypass the safety protections on the Ticketmaster platform. Within the course of, it was in a position to beat many real ticket patrons on the platform who needed to flip to it to purchase these tickets, clearly at a markup.
Whereas shopping for tickets with the intent of reselling them is completely authorized, the FTC accuses Key Funding Group of violating the BOTS Act and FTC Act by “circumventing a safety measure, entry management system, or different technological management or measure on an web web site or on-line service that’s utilized by the ticket issuer to implement posted occasion ticket limits or to keep up the integrity of posted on-line ticket buying order guidelines.”
FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson stated, “As we speak’s motion places brokers on discover that the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers’ buy limits, making certain that buyers have a possibility to purchase tickets at honest costs.”
Why do Taylor Swift tickets break the bank?
The FTC’s new lawsuit filed as we speak says refined scalping operations are partially in charge.
Ticket dealer Key Funding Group allegedly purchased 273 tickets for 1 Swift present and resold them at a markup.
In whole, the FTC says the… pic.twitter.com/a6otPSkmts
— Rob Freund (@RobertFreundLaw) August 19, 2025
FTC Accuses Ticket Dealer of Making Tens of millions By means of Unlawful Means
FTC claims that in simply over one 12 months, Key Funding Group made $7 million by these means because it purchased tickets for $57 million whereas promoting them for $64 million. It made a cool $1.2 million in 2023 for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” alone.
Expectedly, Key Funding Group has denied the allegations and says that the FTC “twisted the intent” of the BOTS Act by turning it “right into a weapon towards official companies and customers.”
It added, “Underneath the FTC’s interpretation, anybody who purchases greater than 4 tickets or makes use of multiple account may very well be deemed in violation of federal regulation.”
The corporate additionally took a swipe at Ticketmaster’s obvious monopoly within the US ticketing market. It stated, “The case threatens to dismantle the secondary ticket marketplace for reside occasions, additional consolidating energy within the arms of the business’s largest monopoly.”
Dwell Nation Antitrust Case
To make sure, this isn’t the primary main antitrust lawsuit within the ticketing house. Final 12 months, the Division of Justice (DOJ), together with a number of state and district attorneys common, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit towards Ticketmaster and its father or mother firm, Dwell Nation Leisure. The lawsuit alleges that the corporate has an unlawful monopoly over the reside occasions business and has used anticompetitive practices to hurt followers, artists, and venues.
Dwell Nation obtained a jolt in March when a federal decide denied its movement to dismiss key components of the lawsuit. The corporate can also be individually going through class motion lawsuits from customers, and in April, a federal decide denied the corporate’s try to dismiss one among these.
The US Ticketing Market Is Seemingly Rigged
The ticketing marketplace for massive occasions appears rigged towards followers. On the coronary heart of the difficulty lies the dominant market share of Ticketmaster, which is estimated to be between 70%-80% for main live shows. By means of its long-term unique contracts with most massive venues, Dwell Nation has squeezed the marketplace for smaller gamers, a lot of which it has acquired to (allegedly) additional scale back competitors.
Whereas ticket “scalpers” have existed for over a century, the enterprise is simply gaining traction with the rising reputation of digital platforms. It doesn’t assist that Ticketmaster holds the dominant market share, the place ticket brokers are in a position to purchase tickets in bulk, which they will then promote to patrons on Ticketmaster’s resale platform, resulting in extra revenues for the Dwell Nation subsidiary.
The FTC Has Been a Lot Extra Lenient on Corporates Underneath Trump
Since President Donald Trump took workplace, the FTC has been much more lenient in the direction of antitrust enforcement for essentially the most half, transferring away from the extra aggressive stance of the prior administration. This FTC has both dropped or halted many circumstances and investigations in simply its first few months.
These embrace dropping the value gouging case towards PepsiCo, which was accused by the earlier administration of offering favorable pricing to Walmart, dismissing the grievance towards Grand Canyon College, which was beforehand accused of deceiving college students concerning the prices of doctoral packages, and dropping the long-standing case towards Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
The FTC was remarkably lively underneath the Joe Biden administration after a long time of hibernation. Trump, alternatively, has vowed fewer rules, and his administration has been extra amenable to M&As. FTC’s actions appear to align effectively with the President’s insurance policies, whilst many concern that it will come at the price of the US client.
That stated, Trump has been on a tirade towards middlemen and issued an govt order to that impact in March. Nonetheless, it stays to be seen whether or not the case towards Key Funding Group reaches its logical conclusion or finally ends up getting dropped.
