Ticket broker Key Investment Group has been sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for using unlawful tactics to exceed ticket purchasing limits and resell the tickets at significantly higher prices for many popular events.
In its complaint, the FTC targets the Maryland-based company and its affiliated businesses, including Epic Seats, TotalTickets.com, and Totally Tix, as well as its CEO Yair Rozmaryn, CFO Elan Rozmaryn, and chief strategic officer Taylor Kurth.
The agency alleges that the operation uses a variety of tactics to bypass security measures, which are implemented by Ticketmaster to block resellers from violating ticket purchasing limits.
In order to accomplish this, the defendants had used thousands of Ticketmaster accounts to purchase tickets, utilized thousands of virtual and traditional credit card numbers, hid their identity by using proxy or spoofed IP addresses, and used SIM boxes to facilitate the receipt of verification codes, according to the complaint.
The FTC claims the defendants purchased at least 379,776 tickets in just over a year from Ticketmaster for $57 million and resold a portion of those tickets on secondary marketplaces for approximately $64 million. The tickets were for popular events such as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
These practices violate the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, the complaint notes.
“President Trump made it clear in his March Executive Order that unscrupulous middlemen who harm fans and jack up prices through anticompetitive methods will hear from us,” said FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson.
“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,” he added.
