A lot of people complain about losing $30 or $40 to some guy... can you imagine losing $56,000 on Olympic tickets that never existed in the first place? The scale of the scam is incredible. The site (beijingticketing.com - now offline) did look incredibly professional and you can see why people were tricked. The site is apparently run by a Brit known for scamming. On the news last night I was watching a story on an Australian family that had already arrived in Beijing, expecting to pickup the tickets, only to find out that their $14,000 bought them nothing. They're now in Beijing for 4 weeks with no tickets to any events and no hope of getting a refund. Sad huh?
Sad, but totally expected. It is the same sad story you hear about with every major event. I feel for them, but it is a risk you take when buying from a unverified reseller.
I was reading the paper today and this lawyer from Boulder is trying to ride the publicity on this with a website. LINK Thought it was an interesting advertising ploy, he already getting a lot of traffic.
It's terrible to see these people trying to take advantage of others. I hope these perpetrators can be caught and punished appropriately.