The Federal Trade Commission and state prosecutors on Thursday filed a joint lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster accusing the event services of allowing brokers to scoop up event tickets and resell them at inflated prices, costing consumers billions of dollars.

In a legal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the regulatory agency also alleged that Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, used "bait-and-switch pricing" tactics by advertising lower ticket prices than what was actually available to customers, and by selling millions of tickets to brokers— often at a significant markup — despite limits that artists had placed on such sales.

"The FTC alleges that in public, Ticketmaster maintains that its business model is a

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