The Federal Trade Commission and a ticket broker reportedly agreed to settle accusations involving Tate McRae and Megan Moroney concerts. The ticket brokerage allegedly acquired and resold more than 100,000 concert tickets for various artists.
FTC accused the company of using tactics to obtain high-demand concert tickets and reselling them
The Federal Trade Commission accused Elite Events of concert ticket scalping using overseas workers and fake digital identities to obtain tickets for resale. They reportedly acquired more than 100,000 tickets for various artists including Tate McRae, Megan Moroney, Benson Boone and Metallica.
The FTC accused the company of violating the BOTS Act, which prohibits bypassing the security measures used by ticket sellers to enforce purchase limits. According to reports, Elite Events bypassed the purchase limit set by Ticketmaster and AXS.
According to Law Commentary, the FTC’s civil complaint states that Elite Events used overseas employees to pull tickets using fabricated email addresses, virtual credit cards, and disguised identities. The complaint cited examples of Boone’s 2024 Fireworks, Metallica’s 2025 M72 World Tour, Tate McRae’s Miss Possessive Tour, and Moroney’s 2025 Am I Okay? Tour.
The ticket brokerage reportedly scooped more than 1,000 tickets from Boone’s and 1,600 from Moroney’s tour. Fans allegedly faced difficulties acquiring the tickets as the company snapped tickets on various occasions. The allegations involve the use of proxy servers and bots to limit the high-demand concert tickets.
According to the latest reports, FTC and Elite Events have now agreed on a settlement. The proposed settlement amount totals $10.7 million. However, the regulators agreed to suspend most of the amount; the company has to pay $300,000 based on its financial condition.
The FTC director, Christopher Mufarrige, said that consumers deserve the chance to buy tickets without these bad elements.
Elite Events operates through smartscalpers.com, where it resells high-demand concert or event tickets. The Georgia-based ticket broker has neither accepted nor denied the allegations in the settlement.
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