Texas Attorney General Sues Olympic Ticket Scammers

Company accused of taking money and not providing tickets

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

August 6, 2008

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The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games haven't even started, but an unscrupulous ticket broker is already going for the "gold" in consumers' wallets. That's the allegation Texas authorities today made in a lawsuit filed against an Austin-based ticket broker that reportedly deceived consumers who purchased tickets to the Olympic Games.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott took legal action against a company called Ticket City Inc., which sold tickets to the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games for $1,250 each. The company also promised consumers a 200 percent refund if it failed to deliver the pre-purchased tickets.

According to the lawsuit, the company told consumers they would receive their tickets before the start of the Olympic Games.Relying on that information, consumers made hotel reservations and purchased airline tickets to Beijing.

But Ticket City did not have the tickets it was selling online, the attorney general alleged. In March 2008, the company told customers they would not receive their tickets -- or their promised 200 percent refunds.

At the same time, however, authorities learned that Ticket City continued to sell tickets to the opening ceremony at dramatically higher prices. An undercover investigation revealed the company's representatives offered to sell those tickets for $7,000 to $8,668 each.

Abbott's office said the Chinese Government has imposed strict restrictions on how tickets to the Olympic games can be transferred. Specifically, tickets to the opening and closing ceremonies can only be transferred one time after they are sold by a ticket vendor, Abbott said. That means the original buyers can sell their tickets, but the second buyers cannot.

The Chinese government also requires the final buyers to have proper identification, including a photo, embedded into the ticket, along with Chinese the authorities' written approval.

The final day for transferring opening ceremony tickets was July 14, according to the Chinese news agency Xinhuanet. But Ticket City continued to offer tickets for sale as late as July 16, Abbott said.

"No comment"

ConsumerAffairs.com contacted Ticket City today about the lawsuit. "We haven't seen the lawsuit and have no comment," Zach Anderson, the company's vice-president of marketing, told us.

When asked if the company was still selling tickets to the Beijing games, Anderson said "no comment."

We checked the company's Web site today and discovered we could still buy some tickets to the Olympic games. For example, we could get three tickets to the Olympic tennis match on August 12. Those tickets cost $325 each. The Web site, however, also indicated that tickets to many other Olympic events were not available -- including the opening and closing ceremonies.

In the action filed today, Attorney General Abbott seeks a temporary and permanent injunction against the company. It also asks for court-ordered civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and awards in actual damages to consumers who were financially harmed.

Texans taken by this or other fraudulent businesses can contact the Attorney General's hotline at (800) 252-8011 or file a complaint online at www.texasattorneygeneral.gov.

The action taken by Abbot follows a warning released by Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers against other bogus websites claiming to sell Olympic tickets.

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