DOJ Sues Ticket Broker REPS Under the BOTS Act Over Ticket Limits

The Justice Department sued ticket broker REPS & Company, Inc. and three of its officers on October 15, 2026, in the Southern District of California, alleging they circumvented the controls ticket issuers use to enforce posted purchase limits, in violation of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act. Nothing has been proven.

Information last verified on October 18, 2026. This is a newly filed civil complaint. No responsive pleading, appearance or scheduling order had been located as of that date.

Status: Complaint filed October 15, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. These are allegations only, and no court has ruled on any of them. As of the public docket's last refresh on October 16, 2026 it showed the complaint and an issued summons, nothing else.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses one federal civil enforcement action under the Better Online Ticket Sales Act and Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. It does not address state ticket resale or anti-scalping statutes, ticket issuer contract terms, or criminal law. For general consumer enforcement reading, see our guide to what to do after a scam.

What Happened

The United States filed a 22 page civil complaint against a San Diego ticket broker and three of its executives on October 15, 2026, alleging that they spent years defeating the account and purchase limit controls that Ticketmaster and AXS use to cap how many tickets one buyer can get.

The case is captioned United States of America v. REPS & Company, Inc., Ryan Pancheri, Brian Archibald, and Nicholas Totagrande, Case No. 3:26-cv-05895-CAB-BJW, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The document is titled "COMPLAINT FOR PERMANENT INJUNCTION, MONETARY JUDGMENT, CIVIL PENALTY JUDGMENT, AND OTHER RELIEF" and carries a demand for jury trial.

There are four defendants. REPS & Company, Inc. is pleaded as a California corporation with its principal place of business on Jutland Drive in San Diego. Ryan Pancheri is pleaded as CEO, Brian Archibald as President and former COO, and Nicholas Totagrande as COO, each sued individually and as an officer and manager of the company.

The Justice Department brought the action "acting upon notification and referral from the Federal Trade Commission," per the complaint's opening line. The FTC's announcement states that "The Commission vote to refer the complaint to the DOJ for filing was 2-0."

What the government pleads

The complaint states a single count, Count I, for violations of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act and the FTC Act. Paragraph 1 identifies the authorities for relief as Sections 5(m)(1)(A), 13(b) and 19 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 45(m)(1)(A), 53(b) and 57b(b), together with the BOTS Act itself.

On scale, the complaint alleges at paragraph 19 that since 2022 the defendants purchased "over 18.6 million tickets" from Ticketmaster and AXS through more than 3.1 million purchasing transactions, and that for at least 83,500 events they bought more than eight tickets, spending over $1.3 billion, amassing over 18.5 million tickets and making at least $120.8 million in profit on resale.

One internal inconsistency is worth flagging. The complaint's summary paragraph 5 gives a window of January 2022 to October 2025 and says "at least 83,000 separate events," while paragraph 19 and the FTC press release both say at least 83,500. The dollar and ticket figures match across both paragraphs. We report the figure each paragraph gives rather than smoothing them.

The mechanics the complaint describes

The alleged methods are not what most readers picture when they hear "ticket bot." According to the complaint, REPS employed a team of human purchasers, "most of whom are based in the Philippines," and gave them tooling that made many hands look like many unrelated shoppers.

The complaint alleges the company entered "power of attorney" agreements with employees and third party partners authorizing REPS to use each person's name and address to open ticket issuer accounts, then supplied unrelated email addresses, phone numbers and card details. It alleges REPS created as many as 40 accounts from one individual's name and address, and 19 accounts per person on average.

It further alleges the use of thousands of virtual credit card numbers, thousands of phone numbers served by banks of SIM cards to auto retrieve verification codes, and rotating IP proxy and multi session browser services, naming PrimoBrowser, Multilogin and Insomniac. In February 2025, the complaint says, REPS purchasers were queuing in an average of eight browser tabs during on sale periods, and in some instances at least 15.

The complaint also alleges the company maintained an "Error Bible" tracking Ticketmaster error codes, with standard operating procedures for working around limit errors, and quotes internal guidance stating that "In order to combat the Limit Error problem, we make modifications to the base address and use the new modified address to create a new [Ticketmaster account]."

Two events are pleaded as examples. For a Beyonce Renaissance tour date at Arrowhead Stadium on October 1, 2023, the complaint alleges the defendants used at least 1,300 accounts to buy 7,624 tickets where the posted limit was between four and eight, and made roughly $833,323 reselling them. For a Pitbull concert at the Empower FCU Amphitheater on September 7, 2024, it alleges at least 700 accounts, 5,430 tickets and roughly $120,109 in profit at a venue it estimates holds 17,500 people.

On knowledge, the complaint alleges the defendants have been aware of the BOTS Act since its December 2016 enactment, that REPS listed the Act as applicable to the company on a 2022 financial audit questionnaire signed by Archibald, and that the defendants learned in July 2025 of the FTC's investigation of ticket broker Key Investment Group, which the FTC sued on August 18, 2025, and in September 2025 of the Commission's action against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, while continuing to operate as before.

Procedural posture

The posture is: complaint filed October 15, 2026, no responsive pleading located as of October 18, 2026. The FTC's case page for matter 252 3105 lists the case as pending and its last update as October 15, 2026, with only two items in the timeline, the complaint and the press release.

The docket itself sits in the CourtListener RECAP archive, which mirrors PACER filings that users have purchased. As of its last refresh on October 16, 2026 it carried two entries, both dated October 15: the complaint with jury demand against all four defendants, filed with a civil cover sheet, and a summons issued the same day. It lists Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo and Magistrate Judge Brian J. White, which is what the CAB and BJW initials in the case number stand for, a cause of action recorded as "15:0045 Federal Trade Commission Act (unfair or deceptive acts)" and a jury demand by the plaintiff. No answer, appearance, motion or scheduling order appears on it. Because that archive holds only what someone has pulled from PACER, and we did not buy the PACER docket, treat any filing after October 15 as unverified here.

What the Law Actually Says

The Better Online Ticket Sales Act of 2016 is short. It was enacted as Public Law 114-274, Section 2, on December 14, 2016, and is codified at 15 U.S.C. 45c under the heading "Unfair and deceptive acts and practices relating to circumvention of ticket access control measures."

The two prohibitions

Subsection (a)(1) makes it unlawful, "Except as provided in paragraph (2)," for any person:

(A) to circumvent a security measure, access control system, or other technological control or measure on an Internet website or online service that is used by the ticket issuer to enforce posted event ticket purchasing limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order rules; or

(B) to sell or offer to sell any event ticket in interstate commerce obtained in violation of subparagraph (A) if the person selling or offering to sell the ticket either (i) participated directly in or had the ability to control the conduct in violation of subparagraph (A); or (ii) knew or should have known that the event ticket was acquired in violation of subparagraph (A).

Read the operative words closely, because they do real work. Prong (A) is about defeating a control, not about buying a lot of tickets. The target of the circumvention has to be a security measure, access control system or other technological control on a website or online service, and it has to be one the ticket issuer uses to enforce posted purchasing limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online order rules. The statute says nothing about automation. It does not require software, a script or a bot.

Prong (B) is a resale prohibition, and it has its own gate. Reselling is unlawful only where the tickets were obtained in violation of prong (A), and only where the seller either participated directly in or could control that conduct, or knew or should have known how the tickets were acquired.

The exception that is easy to miss

Subsection (a)(2) says it is not unlawful for a person to create or use "any computer software or system" either "to investigate, or further the enforcement or defense, of any alleged violation of this section or other statute or regulation," or "to engage in research necessary to identify and analyze flaws and vulnerabilities" of the measures described in paragraph (1)(A), where that research is conducted "to advance the state of knowledge in the field of computer system security or to assist in the development of computer security product." Those are alternatives, not a pair of conditions.

Definitions constrain reach

The definitions sit in Section 3 of the public law rather than in the code section. An "event" is a concert, theatrical performance, sporting event, show or similar scheduled activity "taking place in a venue with a seating or attendance capacity exceeding 200 persons" that is open to the general public and promoted or sold in interstate commerce. A "ticket issuer" is "any person who makes event tickets available, directly or indirectly, to the general public," and may include the venue operator, the promoter, a participating team or league, a performing company or group, or an agent for any of those.

How it is enforced

The enforcement route is indirect and it matters. Under 15 U.S.C. 45c(b)(1), "A violation of subsection (a) shall be treated as a violation of a rule defining an unfair or a deceptive act or practice under section 18(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 57a(a)(1)(B))." The Commission then enforces it "in the same manner, by the same means, and with the same jurisdiction, powers, and duties" as under the FTC Act, per subsection (b)(2)(A). Section 18(d)(3) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 57a(d)(3), supplies the next link: a violation of a rule under section 18(a)(1)(B) "shall constitute an unfair or deceptive act or practice in violation of section 45(a)(1) of this title," unless the Commission expressly provides otherwise in the rule. That is why one set of facts supports a single count pleading both the BOTS Act and Section 5(a), the chain the complaint sets out at paragraph 17.

That rule violation framing is what unlocks money. Civil penalties under 15 U.S.C. 45(m)(1)(A) are available against a person who violates an FTC rule respecting unfair or deceptive acts or practices "with actual knowledge or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances." The statutory figure is $10,000 per violation, adjusted for inflation under 16 CFR 1.98. The FTC's January 17, 2025 final rule set the Section 5(m)(1)(A) maximum at $53,088, and a Federal Register notice published September 15, 2026 announced that FTC penalty amounts remain unchanged for 2026 because the Office of Management and Budget cancelled the 2026 inflation adjustment.

Redress for consumers runs through Section 19, 15 U.S.C. 57b. Subsection (a)(1) lets the Commission sue over a rule violation, and subsection (b) gives the court jurisdiction "to grant such relief as the court finds necessary to redress injury to consumers," which "may include, but shall not be limited to, rescission or reformation of contracts, the refund of money or return of property, the payment of damages, and public notification," while excluding exemplary or punitive damages.

Section 13(b), 15 U.S.C. 53(b), supplies the injunction and nothing more. In AMG Capital Management, LLC v. FTC, No. 19-508 (U.S. Apr. 22, 2021), the Supreme Court held that "Section 13(b) does not authorize the Commission to seek, or a court to award, equitable monetary relief such as restitution or disgorgement." That is why a complaint seeking money pleads Section 19 and Section 5(m)(1)(A) alongside Section 13(b), as this one does.

Finally, the states. Subsection (c)(1) lets a state attorney general sue as parens patriae to enjoin a violation, compel compliance and obtain "damages, restitution, or other compensation" for residents, with written notice to the Commission normally ten days before filing. Subsection (c)(4) bars a state action against a defendant named in a Commission complaint while that action is pending. Subsection (c)(6) extends the same authority to other authorized state consumer protection officers. The section's enforcement provisions name the Commission and state officials. They do not provide a right of action for an individual ticket purchaser.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The legally interesting feature of this complaint is where the alleged circumvention sits. The purchases themselves are pleaded as people at browsers: a team of purchasers abroad, names borrowed under power of attorney agreements, virtual cards, SIM banks, proxies and browser tabs. Software is pleaded too, including a vendor that allegedly automated the creation of hundreds of ticket issuer accounts, SIM banks that automatically retrieved verification codes, and analytics and scraping tools for picking targets. What the complaint does not allege is software that automates the purchase transaction itself; the automation it pleads goes to account creation, verification code retrieval and resale listing. It alleges accounts built on false or borrowed inputs. If the government's theory holds, the Act's phrase "circumvent a security measure, access control system, or other technological control or measure" covers feeding a verification system those inputs, not just running automated software against it. That reading is available on the statutory text, which never mentions automation, but a court has not adopted it on these facts.

The knowledge element is the second thing to watch, and it explains the shape of the pleading. Civil penalties under Section 5(m)(1)(A) require actual knowledge or knowledge fairly implied from objective circumstances. That is why the complaint devotes a full section to what the defendants allegedly knew, down to an audit questionnaire and their awareness of other FTC ticket cases. Those paragraphs are not color. They are elements.

Enforcement history gives the filing context without needing a superlative. The FTC announced its first BOTS Act cases on January 22, 2021, against three New York ticket brokers in the Eastern District of New York, with judgments totaling more than $31 million partially suspended down to more than $3.7 million payable. The FTC's April 2025 business guidance post on BOTS Act compliance pointed back to those same 2021 cases. More recently the Commission sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster in the Central District of California on September 18, 2025 with seven state attorneys general joining, and on July 27, 2026 announced a proposed settlement of a BOTS Act action against Elite Events and Tickets LLC and its two owners in the Southern District of Georgia, carrying more than $10.7 million in civil penalties suspended on payment of $300,000 and subject to court approval.

One timing provision is worth noting as an observation of ours rather than a prediction. Section 19 carries its own limitation in 15 U.S.C. 57b(d): "No action may be brought by the Commission under this section more than 3 years after the rule violation to which an action under subsection (a)(1) relates, or the unfair or deceptive act or practice to which an action under subsection (a)(2) relates," and the same subsection sets out an exception for actions that follow a final cease and desist order. The complaint pleads conduct beginning in 2022 and "continuing through the present." How that provision interacts with a long running course of conduct, and with a civil penalty claim brought under a different section, is a question for the parties and the court, not something we can answer here.

How This Affects You

Nothing in this filing gives a ticket buyer a claim, and nothing in it produces a refund. The complaint asks the court for an injunction, for monetary relief and for civil penalties. As of October 18, 2026 none of that has been ordered, no fund exists, and there is no claims process. If a website invites you to file a claim in this case, that is a reason for suspicion, not for optimism.

The BOTS Act's own enforcement provisions name the Commission and state attorneys general or other authorized state consumer protection officers. Where consumers have recovered in FTC matters, it has generally been through a Commission redress program after a judgment or settlement, not through a direct suit under this section. State consumer protection statutes are separate and may provide their own remedies depending on the state. California's statutes, for example, sit alongside federal enforcement rather than inside it, and we cover them in our page on California consumer fraud law.

If you believe a broker or reseller is defeating ticket limits, the FTC takes consumer reports at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and your state attorney general's consumer protection division accepts complaints as well. Which office is the right one depends on the conduct and the amount at stake, and we break the reporting choices down by agency.

A broader note on expectations. The BOTS Act regulates how tickets are obtained from the issuer. It does not cap resale prices, does not require all in pricing, and does not make secondary market resale unlawful. Those are separate questions handled by state resale statutes, by the FTC's fee disclosure rulemaking and by platform terms.

What Happens Next

The next docket events in an ordinary civil enforcement case of this kind would be service, appearances for each defendant, and either an answer or a motion to dismiss directed at whether the pleaded conduct meets the statutory definition of circumventing a security measure or access control system. A jury demand is on the face of the complaint.

The specific event that would change this story is a filing: a responsive pleading that states the defendants' position, a dispositive ruling on the scope of 15 U.S.C. 45c, or a stipulated order resolving the matter. We have not bought the PACER docket, and the public mirror showed nothing past the summons, so we are not reporting one.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. This article covers federal law, specifically the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, 15 U.S.C. 45c, and the Federal Trade Commission Act, and one civil action pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Sources were verified on October 18, 2026. Laws change; consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Related articles

• What to do after a scam, and how to report it
• Which agency handles which kind of complaint
• California consumer fraud law and your right to sue
• Getting money back depends on how you paid

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Last updated: 2026-10-18. Developing story: the docket was not readable from a public source at publication, and this page will be updated when a responsive pleading or order is verified.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Better Online Ticket Sales Act?

The BOTS Act of 2016 is a short federal statute codified at 15 U.S.C. 45c. It makes two things unlawful. First, circumventing a security measure, access control system, or other technological control on a website or online service that a ticket issuer uses to enforce posted event ticket purchasing limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order rules. Second, selling or offering to sell in interstate commerce a ticket obtained that way, where the seller participated directly in or had the ability to control the circumvention, or knew or should have known how the ticket was acquired. It was enacted as Public Law 114-274 on December 14, 2016.

Who did the Justice Department sue, and when?

The United States filed a complaint on October 15, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Case No. 3:26-cv-05895-CAB-BJW. There are four defendants: REPS & Company, Inc., a California corporation, and three of its officers sued individually and as officers and managers, CEO Ryan Pancheri, President Brian Archibald and COO Nicholas Totagrande. The Justice Department filed on referral from the Federal Trade Commission, and the FTC says the Commission voted 2-0 to make that referral.

Has a court found that REPS violated the BOTS Act?

No. A complaint is an allegation, not a finding. As of October 18, 2026 the matter is a newly filed civil case, the FTC's case page lists it as pending, and we located no responsive pleading, appearance or ruling. Every description of the defendants' conduct in this article is what the government alleges.

How many tickets does the complaint say were involved?

The complaint alleges at paragraph 19 that since 2022 the defendants bought over 18.6 million tickets from Ticketmaster and AXS through more than 3.1 million transactions, and that for at least 83,500 events they bought more than eight tickets, spending over $1.3 billion to amass more than 18.5 million tickets and making at least $120.8 million in resale profit. The complaint's own summary paragraph 5 gives a window of January 2022 to October 2025 and a figure of at least 83,000 events. Both numbers appear in the same document.

Will ticket buyers get refunds or payments from this case?

Nothing has been awarded. The complaint seeks a permanent injunction, monetary relief and civil penalties. As of October 18, 2026 there is no judgment, no settlement fund and no claims process, and the court has not ordered any payment. There is no legitimate place to file a claim in this case.

What are the civil penalties for a BOTS Act violation?

A BOTS Act violation is treated as a violation of an FTC rule defining an unfair or deceptive act or practice, under 15 U.S.C. 45c(b)(1). That makes 15 U.S.C. 45(m)(1)(A) available, which allows a civil penalty where the violation was committed with actual knowledge or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances. The statutory amount is $10,000 per violation, adjusted for inflation under 16 CFR 1.98. The FTC set that maximum at $53,088 effective January 17, 2025, and announced on September 15, 2026 that its penalty amounts stay at the 2025 levels for 2026.

Does the BOTS Act make it illegal to buy more tickets than the posted limit?

Not by itself. The statutory prohibition in subsection (a)(1)(A) is aimed at circumventing a security measure, access control system, or other technological control or measure that the ticket issuer uses to enforce posted limits or to maintain the integrity of posted order rules. Exceeding a limit without defeating such a control is not what that text describes. The separate resale prong in subsection (a)(1)(B) applies only to tickets obtained in violation of prong (A), and only where the seller participated in or could control that conduct or knew or should have known how the tickets were acquired. Ticket issuer contract terms and state ticket resale laws are separate from the federal statute.

Can an individual sue a ticket broker under the BOTS Act?

The section's enforcement provisions name the Federal Trade Commission in subsection (b) and state attorneys general, along with other authorized state consumer protection officers, in subsection (c). Those provisions do not establish a right of action for an individual ticket purchaser. A state attorney general suing as parens patriae may seek damages, restitution or other compensation for residents, but may not sue a defendant named in a pending Commission complaint over the same violation. Separate state consumer protection statutes may offer their own remedies, which vary by state.

Does the BOTS Act have any exceptions?

Yes. Subsection (a)(2) says it is not unlawful to create or use software or a system to investigate, or further the enforcement or defense of, an alleged violation of the section or of another statute or regulation, or to conduct research necessary to identify and analyze flaws and vulnerabilities in the measures described in paragraph (1)(A), where that research is done to advance the state of knowledge in computer system security or to assist in developing a computer security product.

Has the FTC enforced the BOTS Act before?

Yes. The FTC announced its first cases under the Act on January 22, 2021 against three New York ticket brokers in the Eastern District of New York, with judgments of more than $31 million partially suspended to more than $3.7 million payable. The Commission sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster in the Central District of California on September 18, 2025, joined by seven state attorneys general, and on July 27, 2026 announced a proposed settlement of a BOTS Act action against Elite Events and Tickets LLC and its two owners in the Southern District of Georgia, with more than $10.7 million in civil penalties suspended on payment of $300,000 and subject to court approval.