Most live events simply aren’t an option due to the pandemic, but that isn’t stopping the FTC from cracking down on ticket scalper bots. The regulator has taken its first legal action using the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act meant to punish these scalping practices. The owners of Concert Specials, Just in Time Tickets and Cartisim face a total of $3.7 million in fines for using bots to automatically scoop up “thousands” of tickets and resell them to would-be guests.
In addition to the bots themselves, the companies allegedly broke the law by hiding their internet addresses and using bogus Ticketmaster accounts (plus credit cards) to dodge purchasing rules. The perpetrators made “millions of dollars” from the practice, the FTC said.