Feds Sue the Broker That Bought 7,624 Beyoncé Tickets

Federal lawyers sued San Diego ticket broker REPS & Company on October 15 for allegedly buying more than 18.5 million event tickets by beating posted caps.

The FTC says the firm spent more than $1.3 billion and took at least $120.8 million in profit. Almost every one of those events is already over, so the case is a bill for seats fans never had a fair shot to buy.

The Complaint Puts 18.5 Million Tickets on One Broker

The Justice Department filed the civil case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California after an FTC referral. The commission’s vote to send it over was 2-0. Named with the company are chief executive Ryan Pancheri, president Brian Archibald, and chief operating officer Nicholas Totagrande.

The brokerage, founded in 2017 in San Diego, sells itself as a data and technology shop in live events. The government says the real product was inventory: more than eight tickets apiece at at least 83,500 events from January 2022 through October 2025, then a markup on StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, Gametime, TicketNetwork, and Ticketmaster’s own resale page.

THE HAUL ALLEGED BY THE FTC

• The tickets: More than 18.5 million seats across concerts, sports, comedy, Broadway, rodeos, and festivals.
• The outlay: More than $1.3 billion paid to primary sellers such as Ticketmaster and AXS.
• The take: At least $120.8 million in resale profit, according to the complaint.
• The targets: High-demand bills the firm’s software flagged, including Beyoncé, Post Malone, Luke Bryan, and Pitbull.

Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, put the charge in one line.

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 inflated prices to consumers.

Christopher Mufarrige, Director, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, October 15 statement

The agency posted the same announcement on X the day the case went in.

FTC sues ticket broker over unlawful tactics used to buy millions of tickets to popular live events. Complaint alleges REPS earned millions by unlawfully bypassing ticket-issuer security measures to exceed purchasing limits: https://t.co/O17gk6hKQd

— FTC (@FTC) October 15, 2026

Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said the Civil Division would keep using the BOTS Act against people who exceed purchase limits and then sell the seats at a heavy markup. The filing asks for a permanent injunction, money, and civil penalties. It does not set a dollar figure for those penalties.

How REPS Cleared a Four-to-Eight Ticket Cap

Posted limits on the shows in the file ran about four to eight tickets a buyer. Ticketmaster and AXS, the complaint says, already cap the quantity selector and watch accounts, cards, emails, phones, and IP addresses. The government says REPS treated each login as a fresh buyer.

On the Kansas City night, 1,300 accounts took 7,624 tickets, or just under six seats per account. For the Pitbull date, 700 accounts took 5,430 tickets, or just under eight. The per-login numbers sit inside a four-to-eight cap. The alleged cheat is the pile of logins, not a single cart that asked for thousands of seats.

The complaint for permanent injunction and penalties walks through the desk that produced those logins.

THE BUYING PLAYBOOK IN THE COMPLAINT

• Borrowed identities: Staff and partners signed papers, including power-of-attorney forms, so the firm could open issuer accounts in their names, averaging 19 accounts a person and as many as 40 on one person.
• Company plastic: Virtual credit cards and phone numbers the firm controlled sat behind those accounts, so each login looked like a different wallet.
• Hidden locations: IP proxies, VPNs, and multi-session browsers made one shop look like many buyers in many places.
• A Manila-heavy desk: Most of the purchasing employees, the FTC says, worked from the Philippines and ran the accounts on the firm’s instructions.
• The Error Bible: When a site threw a limit error, staff changed a letter in a name or address and tried again, using an internal guide to issuer error codes.

Internal files, the FTC says, show officers talking through ways to keep those accounts from getting blocked. When an issuer did block a sale, the workaround was a small spelling change, not a stop. That is the specimen. The limit was a speed bump with a documented detour.

Kansas City’s Renaissance Finale Lost 7,624 Seats

October 1, 2023, was the last night of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, at Arrowhead Stadium. The posted cap was four to eight tickets a buyer. REPS, the government says, used at least 1,300 Ticketmaster accounts and walked out with 7,624 tickets.

The FTC puts the resale profit on that one bill at $833,000, about $109 a ticket. Those seats were gone from the primary queue before a fan with one account and one card finished the wait.

A second night in the file is smaller and blunter. On September 7, 2024, Pitbull played Empower FCU Amphitheater near Syracuse, New York. The complaint says REPS used at least 700 accounts to buy 5,430 tickets in a house it puts at about 17,500 people, then cleared $120,109 on the resale. That is about 31 percent of the building, and about $22 a ticket in profit.

TWO SHOWS NAMED IN THE FILING

The Kansas City take is the one that travels, because it is a finale and a stadium. The Syracuse night is the one that shows the share of a room. In a 17,500-capacity shed, 5,430 tickets is not a corner of the lawn. It is a third of the night.

The 2016 Law Never Banned Resale

Congress passed the Better Online Ticket Sales Act on December 14, 2016, as Public Law 114-274. It sits at 15 U.S.C. § 45c. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas introduced the Senate bill. President Obama signed it.

The statute does not outlaw a secondary market. It makes it unlawful to get around a security measure, access-control system, or other technical control that a ticket issuer uses to enforce posted purchase limits, or to keep posted order rules intact. It also makes it unlawful to sell a ticket obtained that way if the seller took part in the bypass or knew, or should have known, how the ticket was bought. The events covered are public dates in venues that hold more than 200 people.

That is why the legal question in this file is narrower than scalping. Resale is legal. Building 1,300 accounts, pairing them with virtual cards, and running them through proxies to beat a four-to-eight cap is the conduct the 2016 law was written to stop. The complaint says the defendants knew the statute and kept buying.

The same paper says the harm is the fan who never saw the face-value seat. “Defendants’ actions injured consumers who otherwise may have been able to purchase those tickets in the first instance from ticket issuers at lower prices,” the filing says.

A $10.7 Million Order That Collected $300,000

The BOTS Act sat quiet for four years after it became law. The first federal cases landed on January 22, 2021, against three New York brokers: Just In Time Tickets and owner Evan Kohanian, Concert Specials and owner Steven Ebrani, and Cartisim Corp. and owner Simon Ebrani. The FTC said they had used bots, fake Ticketmaster accounts, and hidden IPs to take more than 150,000 tickets.

The paper penalties ran more than $31 million. Because of inability to pay, the cash due was $3.7 million, roughly 12 cents on the dollar. The orders also barred bots, hidden IPs, and cards in other people’s names. That was the first test of the 2016 law, and it ended as a discount.

The next public BOTS order came on July 27, 2026, against Elite Events and Tickets of Georgia, which also did business as Smart Scalpers, and owners Kevin W. McKerley and Aaron L. Fera. The FTC said they beat limits at more than 2,400 events. One example in that file: 75 accounts bought 277 Metallica tickets at Virginia Tech against a six-ticket cap.

The stipulated penalty was $10.7 million. The payable amount, again for inability to pay, was $300,000, with the full sum due if the finances were false. That is about 3 cents on the dollar. The same order banned multiple accounts, extra IPs, multi-session browsers, and paying with anyone else’s card.

BOTS ACT PENALTIES BEFORE THIS CASE

REPS is a different order of size. Eighteen and a half million tickets and $120.8 million in alleged profit dwarf the 2021 ticket count and the Elite event count. It is also still a live case, not a stipulated check. If the pattern of inability-to-pay haircuts holds, a large paper number can still shrink. If it does not, this is the first BOTS file built to match an industrial desk.

The Markup Landed on StubHub and Ticketmaster

The complaint’s buy list starts with Ticketmaster and AXS. Its sell list includes StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, Gametime, TicketNetwork, and Ticketmaster’s resale marketplace. The same company whose limits were allegedly beaten still had a page where some of those seats could be sold again, with a second fee stacked on the first sale.

Primary sellers already had the tools the FTC describes: capped selectors, unique cards, unique phones, unique IPs. The filing says REPS spent years getting around those tools, and that issuers did block or cancel some orders. The volume that still cleared, more than 18.5 million tickets, is the part that will follow Ticketmaster into its own separate FTC case over how brokers get at primary inventory.

That other case is not this case. This complaint treats the issuers as the sites whose controls were bypassed. It still leaves a plain fact on the table. Ticketmaster took the original purchase money on seats the government says a broker should never have been allowed to stack, and Ticketmaster’s resale page is named as one of the places those seats were flipped.

Mufarrige’s second line in the REPS release is a warning to the rest of the desk: firms that drive up prices or keep ordinary fans from reasonably priced tickets “should be on notice that we are watching and will take action to stop this unlawful conduct.” Watching, in this file, started after four years of buying.

Those 18.5 Million Tickets Are Already Used

The Kansas City finale is three years gone. The Syracuse Pitbull date is more than two years gone. Most of the 83,500 events in the count are closed houses. Nobody in this lawsuit can hand a Renaissance floor seat back to the person who refreshed Ticketmaster in 2023 and hit a limit error.

The relief on the caption is forward-looking: stop the tactics, pay money, pay a civil penalty. There is no refund window, no fee cap, and no plan to unwind listings that already settled. The legal fight is whether thousands of accounts, virtual cards, and an Error Bible add up to a BOTS Act violation at this scale, and what a judge will make the defendants pay if they do.

REPS has not issued a public response. The Justice Department, in the same release that announced the case, said the claims are no determination of liability and remain allegations only. The concerts are still over.