$4M Settlement In NY Bot Scam

Six ticket resellers agreed to pay nearly $4.2 million to settle allegations in New York that they illegally used bots and sold tickets to concerts and other events, including one that used the software to illegally purchase more than 1,000 U2 tickets in one minute. 

Alessandro Di Marco / ANSA via AP – U2
Pala Alpitour, Torino, Italy

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the settlements May 11, adding that the companies in questions either used bots or were operating without proper state licenses.

State law penalizes companies that use ticket bots to circumvent limits on how many tickets one person can buy and prohibits the reselling of tickets acquired through ticket bots.

The companies are Renaissance Ventures (dba Prestige Entertainment), Ebrani Corp (dba Presidential Tickets), concert Specials, Faftech Inc. and BMC Capital Partners, according to the Long Island Business Journal. 

The case involves mass ticket purchases on websites such as Ticketmaster, starting in 2011, and resales made on platforms including StubHub and Vivid Seats, the paper reports. The purchases were allegedly made without required licensing, and before tickets could be obtained by consumers.

The settlements require the companies to maintain proper licenses, cease using bots and pay penalties.

Prestige Entertainment was by far the largest alleged perp and must pay the largest share of the settlement: $3,350,000. It reportedly used two different bots and thousands of Ticketmaster and credit card accounts to purchase New York concert tickets.

The company also allegedly purchased IP addresses from online IP proxy services to skirt detection by primary sellers such as Ticketmaster.

Prestige used all those resources to purchase 1,012 tickets to a 2014 U2 concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden in one minute, according to Schneiderman’s office.