Bogus websites purporting to sell tickets for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing have scammed hundreds of ticket buyers out of Olympian-sized payments.
Canadians, Americans, Australians and some athletes' families, have been duped in the scam. Some have lost as much as US$50,000.
"It had the different characters that are on the Olympic website," Chante Pathak of Windsor, Ont., told CTV News. "It had every sporting event possible, every time, a timetable, a map -- everything. It looked totally legitimate."
The International Olympic Committee and U.S. authorities have sued two websites, beijingticketing.com and beijing-2008tickets.com, and shut at least one of them down, alleging they made millions.
Authorities say the websites were illegally using Olympic trademarks to convince customers to hand over their credit card and personal information.
Consumers who ordered tickets from www.beijingticketing.com, reported receiving a mass email Monday that informed them the company did not have tickets to distribute.
An email from "Alan Scott" told customers that "our suppliers have not been able to honour their commitments to us in supplying tickets for the Summer Olympics, despite having received written assurances from these suppliers. We are given to understand that they have placed themselves in to bankruptcy, despite having been paid in full by our company" the Los Angeles Times reported.
James Moriarty, a Houston, Tex. lawyer, ordered US$12,000 worth of tickets from one of the websites, never to receive the highly sought tickets.
"My initial reaction was fear, anger, I said lots of very ugly words," he told ABC. He said the website had looked authentic so he purchased the tickets.
Some customers have been able to get their money back from their credit card companies but it's not clear yet if everyone will be paid back.
The official Beijing ticket website says as of July 27 all Olympic events within the city have sold out.
With a report from CTV's Scott Laurie
