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The companies and their bosses, Evan Kohanian, Simon Ebrani, and Steven Brani, have been ordered to pay £2.7m between them by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), lowered from $31m (£22m) due to their inability to pay the fines.
A summary of the court case reads: “The three ticket brokers will be subject to a judgment of more than $31 million in civil penalties for violating the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, under a proposed settlement reached with the FTC. Due to their inability to pay, the judgment will be partially suspended, requiring them to pay $3.7 million.
The FTC’s chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter added in a statement: “The Act’s bipartisan sponsors sought to crack down on the abuses that unscrupulous actors inflict on consumers whose typing fingers were no match for algorithms in attempting to secure tickets online.
Three New York-area ticket resellers have been fined by the FTC under the BOTS Act, as Engadget reports. It is the first case to be brought under the Obama-era anti-scalping legislation that was passed in 2016. Three companies Just in Time Tickets, Inc., Cartisim Corp., and Concert Specials, Inc. and their principals Evan Kohanian, Simon Ebrani, and Steven Brani are alleged to have used ticket bots to purchase tickets to flip on the resale market. They were handed a civil penalty judgment totaling $3.7 million.
“The three ticket brokers will be subject to a judgment of more than $31 million in civil penalties for violating the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, under a proposed settlement reached with the FTC,” reads the case summary. “Due to their inability to pay, the judgment will be partially suspended, requiring them to pay $3.7 million.”
January 23rd, 2021
Cindy Ord/Getty Images
Most live events simply aren’t an option due to the pandemic, but that isn’t stopping the FTC from cracking down on ticket scalper bots. The regulator has taken its first legal action using the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act meant to punish these scalping practices. The owners of Concert Specials, Just in Time Tickets and Cartisim face a total of $3.7 million in fines for using bots to automatically scoop up “thousands” of tickets and resell them to would-be guests.
In addition to the bots themselves, the companies allegedly broke the law by hiding their internet addresses and using bogus Ticketmaster accounts (plus credit cards) to dodge purchasing rules. The perpetrators made “millions of dollars” from the practice, the FTC said.
DOJ: 3 LI ticket brokers that used bots face $3 7 million in penalties newsday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.