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FTC Sues Ticket Reseller Over Swift Tour Sales as Scrutiny of Ticketing Industry Widens

By  |  August 19, 2025

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Key Investment Group, a Baltimore-based ticket reseller, accusing the company of bypassing purchase restrictions to acquire thousands of tickets for high-demand concerts, including Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, and reselling them at significant markups. The complaint was lodged in federal court in Maryland on Monday, according to Reuters.

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    The FTC alleges that Key Investment Group, which operates sites such as TotalTickets.com, exploited thousands of Ticketmaster accounts — some fake or purchased — to buy tickets beyond the platform’s limits. The agency cited one Las Vegas show in March 2023 where the company used 49 accounts to secure 273 tickets despite a six-ticket-per-person cap, later reselling them for over $119,000. Overall, Key Investment Group is said to have made more than $1.2 million reselling 2,280 tickets to Swift concerts last year, per Reuters.

    The case represents part of a broader effort by regulators to rein in ticketing practices viewed as harmful to consumers. President Donald Trump announced a crackdown in March targeting resellers who inflate ticket prices through mass purchases. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the suit should serve as a warning that the agency will act against companies that evade ticketing rules.

    Related: New UK Legislation to Combat Ticket Resale and Algorithmic Price-Fixing

    Key Investment Group pushed back on the allegations, arguing that the FTC was stretching the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act beyond its intended scope. “In an unprecedented move, the FTC has twisted the intent of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, a law designed to target malicious software, into a weapon against legitimate businesses and consumers,” a company spokesperson said Monday. The group also filed its own lawsuit in July seeking to block the investigation, claiming it never used bots and therefore did not violate the law.

    According to the FTC’s complaint, Ticketmaster itself flagged Key Investment Group and other brokers as early as 2018 for using thousands of accounts, warning internally of potential “serious negative economic impact” if the company tightened enforcement of its sales limits.

    While the FTC’s suit is not an antitrust action, it adds to mounting scrutiny of the live events industry. Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, is separately facing a lawsuit from U.S. antitrust enforcers accusing it of monopolizing concert promotion and ticketing markets, per Reuters. Together, the actions reflect intensifying pressure on the ticketing ecosystem, where both major platforms and resellers have been blamed for soaring prices and limited access for fans.

    Source: Reuters