A San Diego ticket broker spent more than $1.3 billion to amass more than 18.5 million tickets to live events, and made at least $120.8 million in profit reselling them, according to a federal complaint. The Federal Trade Commission, which refers such cases to the Justice Department, alleges that REPS & Company got there by evading the purchase limits that ticket sellers set for individual fans. The allegations are unproven.
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The Justice Department filed the suit on Oct. 15 in the Southern District of California, on the FTC’s behalf, and the tickets in question were for popular live events.
REPS & Company and the BOTS Act complaint
The FTC’s announcement of the suit says the Commission voted 2-0 to refer the complaint, and that the defendants are REPS & Company Inc. along with its chief executive Ryan Pancheri, president Brian Archibald and chief operating officer Nicholas Totagrande. The FTC’s case page lists the matter as pending, with civil penalties and a federal injunction among the remedies sought.
The legal hook is the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, which makes it unlawful to circumvent a security measure, access control system or other technological control that a ticket issuer uses to enforce posted purchase limits, and to resell tickets obtained that way. Violations are treated as unfair or deceptive practices under the FTC Act, which gives the agency its usual enforcement powers, and state attorneys general can also sue unless the FTC already has an action pending against the same defendant.
Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said REPS’ entire business model “is focused on trying to game the ticket-purchasing system” so that tickets can be resold at inflated prices to consumers. Companies that raise prices or deny fans reasonably priced tickets, he said, should consider themselves on notice that the agency is watching.
83,500 events, 18.5 million tickets and a Beyoncé show in Kansas City
The agency alleges that since 2022 REPS bought more than eight tickets each for at least 83,500 events, many of them in high demand. The complaint itself puts the period of those large purchases at January 2022 through October 2025, counts more than 3.1 million ticket purchase transactions, and notes that posted limits were often four to eight tickets per buyer. The tickets were then resold on secondary marketplaces that the complaint names as StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, Gametime, Ticket Network and Ticketmaster’s resale site. The filing uses both 83,000 and 83,500 for the number of events in different paragraphs.
Two examples anchor the case. For a Beyoncé concert at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, on Oct. 1, 2023, REPS allegedly used about 1,300 accounts to buy 7,624 tickets through Ticketmaster, for about $833,000 in profit. For a Pitbull show at Empower FCU Amphitheater on Sept. 7, 2024, the complaint alleges about 700 accounts bought 5,430 tickets, nearly a third of a venue holding about 17,500, for roughly $120,000.
Accounts in other people’s names, virtual cards and proxy browsers
The FTC says REPS used thousands of accounts registered under names, addresses or phone numbers belonging to other people, in some cases under power-of-attorney agreements with employees and partners. The complaint alleges as many as 40 accounts per person and about 19 on average, and says REPS used software from Broker Genius to automate account creation and listings. It also describes virtual credit cards and phone numbers controlled by the company, SIM banks to receive verification codes, and IP proxy services and multi-session browsers that mask identity and location.
Most of the buyers, the FTC says, work from the Philippines and were trained and evaluated on speed and on running multiple accounts. When issuers blocked a purchase, internal documents allegedly show employees making slight changes to account names or addresses and trying again. Ticketmaster and AXS use quantity caps and monitoring of accounts, payment details, contact information and IP addresses to stop resellers, and the complaint says issuers canceled thousands of REPS purchases. Speed mattered: the complaint says that in April 2024 one purchaser using 20 accounts bought 128 tickets in 20 transactions over two hours, and that in February 2025 purchasers queued in as many as 15 browser tabs at once.
Earlier ticket-broker cases under the BOTS Act
The complaint says REPS knew about the law: an audit questionnaire from 2022 listed the BOTS Act as applicable, and it was signed by Archibald. It also cites two earlier actions the company allegedly monitored, the FTC’s suit against Key Investment Group, filed Aug. 18, 2025, and its case against Live Nation filed in September 2025. In the Key Investment Group case, a Maryland broker was accused of buying 379,776 tickets for about $57 million, a fraction of the volume alleged here.
The relief sought is concrete: a permanent injunction, monetary relief, civil penalties for each violation, and a jury trial. As the FTC itself puts it, the case will be decided by the court, and none of the figures above has been proven.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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