Pittsburgh firm implicated in Hannah Montana ticket heartbreak
A secretive Downtown business accused of enabling scalpers -- and not parents -- to snatch up tickets for the Disney Channel's Hannah Montana concert tour could be ordered to stop selling its controversial ticket-purchasing software as soon as Monday.
RMG Technologies Inc., owned by Cipriano Garibay, is accused in a lawsuit of selling software that allows users to flood Ticketmaster with requests and then sell the tickets online for hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Ticketmaster is seeking an injunction to keep RMG from selling the software. A decision is expected Monday in federal court in Los Angeles.
Hannah Montana, a fictional character portrayed by Miley Cyrus, 14, daughter of country music singer Billy Ray Cyrus, is wildly popular among young girls. Her "Best of Both Worlds" tour comes to Mellon Arena on Jan. 4.
When tickets went on sale last month, the show sold out within minutes. Stunned parents turned to online auction sites and found ticket prices ranging from $250 in nosebleed sections to more than $24,000 for a luxury box. The highest face value for a Hannah Montana ticket is $63.
"It's really unfair that those of us who don't have hundreds and hundreds of dollars can't take our kids," said Belinda Krestar, 29, of McKeesport, who wanted to take her 6-year-old daughter to the show. "At this point, it does not look good. I've seen tickets for $2,500. That's absurd."
The state Attorney General's Office fielded hundreds of phone calls from angry parents who felt they were shut out by scalpers. But while parents seethed, RMG's president said little.
"I have a lot of things to say, but I shouldn't say them right now," Garibay said in a brief phone interview. Asked to describe RMG, Garibay said he runs a "software company" but would not elaborate.
RMG moved operations to One Oxford Centre earlier this year from Steubenville, Ohio, Garibay said. He referred additional questions to his Los Angeles-based lawyer, Jay Coggan, who did not return calls.
In court documents, Garibay said he has designed software for 10 years and that his 10-employee company created, marketed and sold the Ticket Broker Acquisition Tool. He denied the software is a "bot" -- a program that performs automated tasks repeatedly on the Internet -- but would not discuss "technical information" about the software because it is "proprietary to RMG."
According to a former client, RMG is a tight-lipped company that screened clients' backgrounds to make sure they were ticket brokers and instructed customers not to publicly discuss the company's software.
In court documents, Southern California resident Chris Kovach said he began scalping tickets in 2003 but quickly learned he could not buy them fast enough to support the venture. He said he paid RMG a monthly fee to access ticketbrokertools.com and found that he could buy tickets in bulk with RMG's software.
RMG's software sent out automated devices called " 'workers' that can automatically navigate the Ticketmaster Web site," Kovach said in his statement. "By the time I canceled my RMG account in 2007, my level of service enabled me to use multiple workers -- sometimes over 100 of them -- simultaneously to search for and request tickets on Ticketmaster's Web site."
Kovach said RMG sent customers an e-mail urging them "not to publicize the existence of RMG's software or other services or to provide RMG's contact information to third parties."
Kovach outlined the way RMG works as part of a settlement with Ticketmaster after the ticketing giant sued him in Los Angeles for using the software earlier this year. Kovach could not be reached for comment.
In response, Coggan filed court papers dismissing Kovach's statements as "based on pure speculation or hearsay from an unidentified source."
Garibay said in court documents that if his company is forced to stop selling the software, "RMG will effectively be run out of business" because it offers no other services.
Ticketmaster officials said Hannah Montana is the hottest concert in years.
"The Hannah Montana tour has been an absolute phenomenon and has generated levels of demand that we have not seen in decades," said Joe Freeman, a Ticketmaster vice president.
Miley Cyrus' character is an innocuous schoolgirl who moonlights as a pop star.
Nils Frederiksen, spokesman for state Attorney General Tom Corbett, said the hundreds of complaints from parents merit further review.
"We're not the only attorney general's office looking at this," he said.
Attorneys general in Florida, Missouri and Arkansas are investigating similar complaints.
Some parents have posted plaintive messages on craigslist.com, an online classified ads service, saying they want tickets but can't afford scalpers' prices.
Brian Lanz, 35, of Crafton has no sympathy. In response to parents' complaints, Lanz posted several mocking messages.
"You shouldnt (sic) have promised your kids something you couldnt (sic) afford nor obtain," he wrote in one post. "You're crying because you put your foot in your mouth. Now, your kids think YOUR (sic) the LIAR! LOL!"
Lanz, a researcher at a local university, said he is intrigued by RMG's software but did not use it to buy the tickets. Instead, he stood in line at Mellon Arena with three friends and came away with 16 tickets, he said.
His wife will bring his two daughters to the show, and Lanz will sell the rest. He expects to pocket several thousand dollars.
"This Hannah Montana concert is one of the biggest concerts to come along in years," he said. "It's crazy. I wish I could get my hands on more." Additional Information:
Hot tickets
Sept. 14: Tickets to Bruce Springsteen's Nov. 14 show at Mellon Arena sells out in less than six hours.
Sept. 18: An open-air New Year's Day hockey match in Buffalo between the Penguins and Sabres sells out in 30 minutes.
Sept. 29: Tickets for the Jan. 4 Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus 'Best of Both Worlds' concert tour stop at Mellon Arena sell out almost immediately after they go on sale.
Source: Tribune-Review research
