Federal Reserve Sues Ticket Broker Over Alleged $120 Million Beyoncé And Pitbull Ticket Scheme

The Justice Department and the FTC filed a complaint against a San Diego-based ticket broker, alleging that the company violated the BOTS Act by using thousands of accounts to obtain millions of tickets for resale at a significant markup.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have filed a complaint against a San Diego-based ticket resale company, alleging that the company and several of its executives violated federal laws for reselling tickets to the tune of more than $120 million.

The DOJ and FTC allege that REPS & Co violated the Better Online Ticketing Act (BOTS) by opening thousands of accounts across Ticketmaster, AXS and other ticketing services and circumventing the ticketing platforms' purchasing restrictions. Ticket brokers had bought more than 18.6 million tickets for about 83,500 events, the agencies claimed in the lawsuit, including for concerts by Beyoncé, Post Malone and Pit Bull, among others.

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In the case of Beyoncé specifically, the DOJ and FTC allege that REPS used approximately 1,300 accounts to obtain 7,624 tickets for one of the superstar's Renaissance tours at Arrowhead Stadium on Oct. 1, 2023, netting an estimated $833,323 in profit from those tickets.

In 2024, the agency said, the company used 700 accounts to buy 5,430 concert tickets for a Pitbull show at FCU's Empower Amphitheater, netting more than $120,000 in profits.

The agencies allege that REPS recruited ticket buyers in the Philippines to buy tickets for the company and took steps to hide their IP addresses and use VPNs. The DOJ and FTC said the company's business model "is based on identifying events for which tickets are in high demand before ordinary consumers can purchase tickets to those events."

"Defendants' actions harm consumers who might otherwise be able to purchase those tickets at lower prices from ticket issuers in the first place," the lawsuit states.

Representatives for REPS did not immediately respond to THR's request for comment.

"REPS' entire business model is centered around trying to game the ticketing system to get as many tickets as possible to resell to consumers at inflated prices," Christopher Muffridge, director of the FTC's Office of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. "Companies that seek to profit by raising prices or denying regular fans access to reasonably priced tickets to their favorite shows or events need to know that we are watching and will take action to stop this illegal behavior."

The suit comes amid a period of increased government oversight of the live music business. Last year, President Trump, along with Kid Rock in the Oval Office, signed an executive order calling for increased enforcement of the BOTS Act and also for the FTC to "evaluate and, if necessary, take enforcement action to prevent unfair, deceptive and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market."

Elsewhere, last year the FTC filed a complaint against concert giant Live Nation, accusing the company of colluding with ticket brokers to get tickets before regular customers could get them. Meanwhile, the Justice Department sued Live Nation in 2024 for antitrust. (The Justice Department and Live Nation had settled on the latter, though a series of states continued to sue on their own, and Live Nation was found liable in April.)