The Ticket Case Was Bigger Than the Beyoncé Headline

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint Thursday against REPS & Company Inc., a California corporation, and three of its executives: chief executive Ryan Pancheri, president Brian Archibald and chief operating officer Nicholas Totagrande. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, the complaint alleges violations of the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, which prohibits circumventing the measures online ticket sellers use to give consumers fair access to tickets.

International Business Times UK led its coverage with one concert. The complaint alleges REPS used at least 1,300 accounts to buy 7,624 tickets to a Beyoncé show at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on October 1, 2023, despite a Ticketmaster purchase limit of between four and eight tickets, and made about $833,323 reselling them, IBT reports. A second example in the complaint is a Pitbull concert at the Empower FCU Amphitheater in Syracuse, New York on September 7, 2024, where REPS allegedly used at least 700 accounts to buy 5,430 tickets, nearly one-third of the venue's capacity, and made approximately $120,109 on resale.

The complaint puts those two shows inside a far larger pattern. Since 2022, it alleges, the defendants routinely got around ticket issuers' controls to buy tickets beyond purchase limits for thousands of events, then resold them on the secondary market. The Justice Department says the defendants spent more than $1.3 billion to amass over 18.5 million tickets and generated at least $120.8 million in profit. IBT reports the alleged operation reached at least 83,500 events.

Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Civil Division said the department is committed to holding accountable individuals and businesses that drive up the cost of event tickets by illegally exceeding purchase limits and reselling those tickets with exorbitant markups. He said the department will keep enforcing the BOTS Act alongside the FTC to protect consumers. The government is seeking injunctive relief, monetary relief and civil penalties, IBT reports.

The United States is represented by Assistant Director Marcus P. Smith and Trial Attorneys Meredith L. Reiter and Austin T. Mendes of the Civil Division's Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation Branch, in coordination with the FTC. The headline was one pop star. The complaint's case, by its own numbers, is 18.5 million tickets across at least 83,500 events.