If you paid a resale price for a sold-out show in the last few years, part of that money may have gone to a broker who, the federal government says, was never allowed to buy the ticket.
On October 15, the Justice Department, acting on an FTC referral, sued REPS & Company. The claim: it gamed ticket limits on more than 18.5 million tickets and resold them at a markup.
How you buy 7,624 tickets with a limit of eight
Ticket limits are the rule that you can only buy four to eight seats per buyer for a hot show, sometimes at the artist’s request. They’re supposed to give regular fans a shot at face value.
According to the complaint, REPS answered that with volume. It opened thousands of Ticketmaster, AXS and other accounts under employees’ or third parties’ names, tied them to virtual credit cards and phone numbers, and hid its buyers behind proxy IP addresses, VPNs and multi-session browsers. The complaint says most of its ticket buyers were based in the Philippines.
The showcase is Beyoncé at Arrowhead Stadium on October 1, 2023. The limit was four to eight tickets. REPS allegedly used at least 1,300 accounts to buy 7,624 of them.
Do the division. That’s under six tickets per account. On average, each account stayed politely inside the limit.
The profit on that one night was about $833,323. That’s roughly $109 on every ticket. The complaint says REPS resells on StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, Gametime, Ticket Network and Ticketmaster’s own resale market, and that buyers of the tickets it resells “often pay a significant markup.”
Where the money hides
Here’s the number they don’t put in the headline. From January 2022 to October 2025, REPS allegedly spent over $1.3 billion on tickets and made at least $120.8 million. By our math, that’s about $70 paid per ticket and $6.53 of profit per ticket.
A 9% margin on average doesn’t make anyone rich. The money is in the sellouts. At a Pitbull show in September 2024, the complaint says REPS bought 5,430 tickets, nearly a third of a roughly 17,500-seat amphitheater, and cleared about $120,109, or around $22 a ticket. The hotter the show, the bigger the cut.
Translation: the resale markup you pay is biggest on exactly the shows you most want to see.
These are allegations. REPS hasn’t had its day in court yet.
The move
Try the original sale first, from the official seller, with every presale you legitimately qualify for. A face-value seat you lose to a broker on sale day is the one you’d buy back later at a markup.
If you end up on resale, compare total prices, not headline prices. Since May 12, 2025, the FTC’s fee rule makes resellers and platforms show the total price up front, though taxes and shipping can still be added. Pull up the same section on two or three resale sites, write down the totals, and buy the lowest. That’s how hidden fees get caught elsewhere, too.
And file this away: nothing in the lawsuit promises refunds to fans. The government wants an injunction, civil penalties and monetary relief. If you spot a seller listing hundreds of seats to a show that just sold out, report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The detail
The case is United States v. REPS & Company Inc., Case 3:26-cv-05895 in the Southern District of California. It names CEO Ryan Pancheri, President Brian Archibald and COO Nicholas Totagrande. The FTC voted 2-0 to refer it. The complaint lays out what the Better Online Ticket Sales Act bans: getting around a ticket seller’s security measures or purchase limits, and selling tickets obtained that way. The complaint says Ticketmaster’s purchase policy forbids “using multiple accounts, payment methods, email addresses, home addresses, or false information” to beat a limit.
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