Four California men were charged on Monday with using sophisticated computer
programs to fraudulently obtain more than a million tickets to concerts and
sporting events and reselling them for a profit estimated at $29 million.
Although the tickets they bought and resold were authentic, prosecutors say
the group used the programs to bypass safeguards meant to restrict the number of
tickets that each customer can buy. According to a 43-count indictment, the four
men and their company, Wiseguy Tickets Inc., devised software that impersonated
individual ticket buyers to bombard online ticket services such as Ticketmaster
and Major League Baseball.
