Inside the Huge Bot Hack Scheme Used to Acquire 100k Fred Again.. Tickets for Australian Tour Dates

It has been revealed that around 500 people used bots to buy thousands of Fred Again.. tickets for shows in Australia back in February.

It was reported that 1 million people had waited online for tickets to the highly-anticipated Australian tour in Melbourne and Sydney. A cybersecurity professional later revealed that he had conducted an analysis and determined that around 20% of the buyers were bots. 

The passes were sold on Ticketek, which had said that the website blocked over 1 million bots from acquiring tickets. Sam Crowther, another cybersecurity professional, later stated that he believed that the ticket scalpers had made a combined $1 million after reselling them. Almost immediately after going on sale, tickets had been made available for over double their original cost.

In the day and age of artificial intelligence, scams have only gotten more advanced. Ticket bots are software programs that allow scalpers to buy large amounts of tickets at once. The software works at an unimaginable speed to fill out the information needed to purchase tickets. 

An estimated 500 people created the scheme in a private community online. Ticketek did note that its own software had stopped thousands of bots from making a purchase, but bots can often bypass these types of protection measures.

Some places have strict anti-scalping laws with fines of up to $10,000 and prison time while others have zero regulations. It is an offense in Melbourne and Sydney to resell a ticket for over 10% of its face value price. The law did not apply to Fred Again..’s shows, as it was not considered a “major event.” 

Fred Again.. is one of the most in-demand artists right now with fans in every part of the world.  The seven shows sold out so quickly that the artist apologized to fans who could not attend. His Australian tour in just ended but maybe Fred Again.. will return to the Down Under soon. 

Madison Duncan

Hi! My name is Madison and I was born and raised in Colorado, giving me immediate access to some of the best live music. I have two degrees from the University of Denver in Media Studies and Criminology and am passionate about music journalism. Some of my favorite artists are, but not limited to, Disco Lines, Tape B, Space Laces, and Whyte Fang.

See author's posts