Chinese Regulators Hold Talks With 12 Firms on Train-Ticket Sales, No Penalties Announced

com reported. In an April 10 announcement, regulators said seven third-party platforms, including Ctrip, Alibaba's Fliggy and Meituan, were summoned for regulatory talks. China's railway system handled over 1.13 billion trips in the first three months of 2026, according to the National Railway Administration.

Ticket scalping is an inevitable function of supply and demand, said Marc Hershberg, director of business and legal affairs at Music Theatre International. Detecting bots requires analyzing patterns in user data including transaction signals, payment signals, purchase speed, buying patterns and credit-card activity rather than a single indicator, said David Irecki, chief technology officer at Boomi.

Ticketmaster blocks automated software, identifies and shuts down fake accounts, and cancels orders that violate its policies.

Brute-force bot attacks represent only one part of the battle against scalpers, and sophisticated networks strive to mimic human fan behavior, the company stated. Live Nation reached a $9.9 million settlement with the District of Columbia in April 2026 over allegations of deceptive advertising of low prices and misleading tactics that created artificial urgency.

Live Nation denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

For at least a decade, Live Nation and Ticketmaster boosted profits by charging predatory, hidden fees, said District of Columbia Attorney General Brian L. Racine. Face-value tickets for Taylor Swift's Eras tour ranged from $49 to $450, while VIP packages started at $199 and reached $899.

On the secondary market, some Eras-tour tickets were listed between $800 and $20,000 each. Broadway.com is a resale ticketing platform whose name often leads buyers to mistake it for an official distributor of Broadway tickets, Hershberg said.