PA Turnpike Commission issues warning about scam texts
According to the commission, false texts are being sent demanding money for unpaid tolls. The most recent text impersonates a collection agency authorized to work on behalf of the PA Turnpike. These messages should not be engaged with.
Anyone who receives texts like this is reminded not to click on any links within the messages.
Similar scam messages have been sent impersonating agencies around the country since April, 2024. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating all of these reports.
Official payments to the PA Turnpike Commission can be made by calling 1-877-736-6727 (M—F, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.), using the official PA Turnpike E-ZPass website, or using the PA Toll Pay app, which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Anyone who receives suspicious texts, similar emails, or messages is asked to file a complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
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The Verge
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Epoch Times
5 hours ago
- Epoch Times
FTC Sues Ticket Broker for Allegedly Exceeding Purchase Limit for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Key Investment Group and its affiliated companies on Aug. 18, alleging that they evaded ticket purchase limits for live events—such as Taylor Swift's Eras Tour—and resold those tickets at inflated prices. In its complaint, the FTC alleged that the Maryland-based ticket broker and its affiliated companies—which operate under brand names such as Epic Seats and Totally Tix—used thousands of fake Ticketmaster accounts and other illegal tactics to bypass security measures designed to prevent buyers from exceeding ticket purchasing limits.


NBC News
21 hours ago
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Group accused of flooding Ticketmaster with fake accounts to buy 321,000 tickets to Taylor Swift and Springsteen shows
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In one instance, the suspects used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets for Swift's March 2023 tour stop in Las Vegas, vastly exceeding Ticketmaster's six-ticket limit, which they then sold for $120,000, the FTC alleges. Another part of the alleged scheme involved using friends, family and paid strangers to open Ticketmaster accounts. The FTC says the defendants at one point printed up flyers in places like Baltimore claiming that participants could 'make money doing verified van sign ups' in just '3 easy steps,' earning $5 for the account creation and $5 to $20 each time they received a Verified Fan presale code. Ticketmaster came in for heavy criticism after fans complained of faulty technology and eye-watering prices for 2022 sales for Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen's tours. The Verified Fan pre-sale for Swift's tour crashed its site, which it blamed on 'bot attacks' and bot fans who didn't have invite codes. It was subsequently forced to postpone the sale date for the general public seeking tickets to Swift's tour 'due to demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory.' In response, Swift alluded to broken 'trust' with Ticketmaster, though she didn't name it directly. 'It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,' she wrote in an Instagram message in 2022, adding: 'I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.' Springsteen said in a statement at the time that 'ticket buying has gotten very confusing, not just for the fans, but for the artists also' but that most of his tickets are 'totally affordable.' In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on curbing exploitative ticket reselling practices that raise costs for fans. On Monday, FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said Trump's order made clear "that unscrupulous middlemen who harm fans and jack up prices through anticompetitive methods will hear from us.' 'Today's action puts brokers on notice that the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers' purchase limits, ensuring that consumers have an opportunity to buy tickets at fair prices,' he said in a statement. Ticketmaster itself has remained under federal scrutiny for violating a prior agreement to curb what regulators said was anti-competitive behavior. In 2024, the Justice Department and FTC under President Joe Biden opened a lawsuit against Ticketmaster's parent company, LiveNation, that accused it of monopolizing the live events industry. 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It also includes an email from one of the defendants in which he 'owns up' to having exceeded the ticket-purchase limit for a May 2024 Bad Bunny show in Miami and offers to have the orders canceled, to which a Ticketmaster rep simply responds that 'as long as the purchases were made using different accounts and cards, it's within the guidelines.' Efforts to reach the three defendants — Taylor Kurth, Elan Rozmaryn and Yair Rozmaryn — named in the suit announced Monday were unsuccessful. In 2018, Kurth signed a deal, or consent decree, with regulators in the state of Washington that committed him to not use software designed to circumvent companies' security policies. The FTC is seeking unspecified damages and civil penalties against the defendants.