

According to CNN.com, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has allegedly sued ticket reseller Key Investment Group for allegedly evading purchasing limits to buy up thousands of tickets to live events including Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and allegedly resell them at a markup, according to a complaint filed in Maryland federal court on Monday.
The Baltimore, Maryland-based company, which operates ticket resale sites including TotalTickets.com, allegedly used thousands of Ticketmaster accounts, including fake or purchased accounts, the FTC said. Ticketmaster allegedly faced intense criticism after its botched 2022 sale of tickets to Swift’s much-hyped New Eras Tour, when billions of requests from Swift fans, bots and ticket resellers overwhelmed its website and the company allegedly canceled a planned ticket sale to the general public.
For one Swift concert, Key Investment Group allegedly used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets and evade a 6-ticket purchase limit, the FTC said on Monday. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement that the lawsuit allegedly puts ticket sellers on notice that the agency will go after those who circumvent ticketing platforms’ limits on ticket sales.
The lawsuit is part of a crackdown President Donald Trump announced in March focused on curbing exploitative ticket reselling practices that raise costs for fans. Key Investment Group sued the FTC in July to block its investigation, saying that alleging that its ticket purchases did not use automated software or bots and did not violate the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.
