Federal authorities brought their first case under a 2016 anti-bot law to crack down on ticket changers. Three New York-based ticket brokers were ordered to pay $ 3.7 million in fines after allegedly earning millions of dollars through bot-powered ticket reseller schemes, the Federal Trade Commission announced Friday.
The companies – Cartisim Corp., owned by Simon Ebrani; Just In Time tickets, owned by Evan Kohanian; and Concert Specials, owned by Steven Ebrani, are accused of obtaining more than 150,000 tickets from Ticketmaster to resell at a premium price. In total, the three earned $ 26.1 million in estimated revenue, according to complaints. The FTC says they allegedly used automated ticket purchase software, tools to hide their IP addresses and an army of hundreds of fake accounts and credit cards, among other methods to bypass Ticketmaster’s purchase limits and protections designed to detect non-human visitors.
FTC regulators added that these are the agency’s first enforcement actions under the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (BOTS), an anti-bot law passed in 2016 that prohibits money changers from using automated means to buy tickets in bulk and avoiding limits purchase.
“These ticket brokers used bots and other technical tricks to get thousands of tickets to popular events as soon as they went on sale,” said FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau director Andrew Smith in Friday’s announcement. “Not only does this deprive loyal fans of the chance to see their favorite artists and shows, it is also against the law.”
The three ticket brokers originally faced more than $ 31 million in civil penalties for violations of the BOTS Act under a proposed agreement with the FTC. But federal regulators have agreed to lift most of these fines due to companies’ inability to pay – as long as they comply with certain terms. Moving forward, defendants may be in doubt for the full amount if it is found that they have violated the BOTS Act again, forged their financial documents to qualify for the value of the suspended agreement, or failed to routinely provide authorities with updated information records and reports of conformity. Once a judge approves these news terms, Concert Specials will pay about $ 1.56 million, Just in Time tickets about $ 1.64 million and Cartisim Corp just under $ 500,000 to the US Treasury .
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So, what events were these money changers going after, anyway? The FTC’s complaints do not go into much detail, except that its alleged targets included various sporting events and musical performances, including Elton John shows. So, if you missed the price of seeing “Rocket Man” live, I think you now know whose fault it is.