How do scalpers manage to circumvent ticketing site rules?

This Monday (12), general ticket sales for singer Taylor Swift’s concert in Brazil began. With more than two million people lining up online, tickets for all three shows sold out in less than 20 minutes.

High demand created chaos among fans of the artist, who took to social networks to question Tickets for Fun, the ticket sales coordinator in the country.

According to reports, many fans have been scammed by scalp scrapers in person at the box office and online salespeople who buy a large number of tickets to sell at an inflated price. The practice is considered illegal in Brazil and may be considered under the Crimes Against the Popular Economy Act.

The situation in the queues in front of the Allianz Parque (SP) and Engenhão (RJ) Stadiums became tense as criminals lined up to threaten fans camping on the pitches. Online sales were also a cause of public complaints. Several users reported that they were among the top five thousand numbers in the virtual queue and yet they could not get tickets.

I’m sorry but I REFUSE to believe this

look at my position to sell tickets pic.twitter.com/oFyU01klvB

— mxri (@mxrianameyer) 12 June 2023

Shortly before 11 p.m. – Tickets For Fun announced that tickets are expired – unofficial resale sites announced more than a thousand tickets for Taylor Swift’s three shows of The Eras Tour. Amounts charged by money changers range from R$4,370 to R$5,175. The price is higher than the most expensive ticket on the tour.

How do scalpers manage to bypass ticket sites?

If you think it’s just a matter of “who goes faster” when buying, sorry that’s not the case. Because the dispute is not fair.

While the action of the changers at the physical ticket booths is strictly dependent on their being in line; online sale, they work through bots, systems that allow the purchase of large numbers of tickets in several different CPFs in a matter of seconds. – and, as a result, it quickly sold out at the official box office.

Experts explain that bots impersonate real buyers and automate the purchasing process by filling in data requested by the platformlike generating names, addresses and even random CPF and RG numbers. The system even manages to beat the human verification buttons, which is the famous part of proving you’re not a robot.

On Twitter, the account @socialistaylor exposed a ticket sales company that allegedly helped Scalpers buy tickets for The Eras Tour at an advantage.

Are the tickets sold out fast? ah yes, there was a company that demanded 237 reais to “facilitate” the position in the queue for the ages (BOT) pic.twitter.com/XsLy6CsBnE

—Jean?? (@socialistaylor) 12 June 2023

The same happened in January of this year. In the sale of concert tickets of the band RBD. With all the tickets sold out within minutes by Eventim, fans accused the company of favoring scalp peelers in a criminal “scheme”. The company denied the illegality in a statement, stating that “at major events it’s normal for tickets to run out in just a few minutes.”

According to the Brazilian Association of Ticket Selling Companies (Abrevin), ticket offices limit ticket sales with CPF to take action against hackers, in addition to using data encryption, authentication and tracking technologies to automatically block actions and suspicious accounts.

Due to high demand, the singer’s team announced two more concerts in Brazil, one in São Paulo (November 24) and the other in Rio de Janeiro (November 19). Sales start on the 22nd of this month.