August 04, 2008
AUSTRALIAN victims of an online Olympic ticketing scam have reported losses of more than $40,000 in the first few hours after a national hotline opened in Sydney today.
The hotline, which opened at 9am (AEST), has received more than 30 calls - mostly from Victoria - as it collects information about the extent of a scam about which the International Olympic Committee has received hundreds of complaints overseas and in Australia.Sports fans say they have been duped by the US-based website beijingticketing.com.
Former NSW opposition leader Kerry Chikarovski, who has been stung by the scam, said the website appeared first on Google searches, even ahead of the official Chinese Olympic site.
NSW Fair Trading Minister Linda Burney defended her department's failure to detect the scam, saying Chinese authorities had the primary responsibility.
"It's the host country that has primary responsibility for monitoring and keeping an eye on whether there are, in particular, ticket scams," Ms Burney told reporters.
"That's why, when the Sydney Olympics were on, we didn't have this problem and I guess it's ironic there's been so much said about internet access in terms of the Beijing Olympics and we still have this major international scam."
The fake ticketing website had contained English grammatical errors, she said.
It could be difficult to recoup money lost in such scams, but Visa and other financial institutions were working to help victims, she said.
AAP