Have you ever tried to purchase tickets to a popular sporting event or concert, only to realize it has sold out in seconds? Or worse, the ticketing site has crashed due to so much traffic? This is often the result of ticket scalping, a type of internet fraud where criminals use malware to purchase event tickets and resell them at inflated prices. Ticket scalping can be difficult to detect, as the fraudsters often use stolen credit card information or other unauthorized payment methods.
Many of these criminals aren’t even human users—but rather, are automated ticket scalping bots, which snag tickets up as soon as they go on sale, deny genuine fans the opportunity to purchase, and put the tickets up for resale for a higher price. Modern scalpers are able to acquire hundreds of tickets in a matter of seconds with the help of powerful scalper bots and automated scripts, leaving true fans with few options but to pay the marked-up prices during the checkout process. This can be big business for criminals. In fact, three men plead guilty to making almost $25 million by using bots to purchase and resell tickets in 2010. This is an example of why ticket buying bots are now prohibited in 13 U.S. states.
Online scalping has a significant impact on the entertainment industry, since artists and event organizers cannot sell tickets to their full capacity, and fans are forced to pay more than they should. In this blog, we’ll explore the impacts of automation on the ticketing…
