BOCOG urges people to buy tickets through legal ways
4/8/2008 16:53
The Beijing Olympics organizers today reminded ticket buyers of purchasing
tickets through legal ways otherwise they may risk losing money.
In
responding to how the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG)
would deal with fraud ticket websites outside China, media official Sun Weide
said they need to check with the National Olympic Committees.
Reporters told
Sun that citizens in some countries bought tickets from a website called
Beijingticket2008.com and some lost thousand of dollars for buying tickets in
this website.
"We are not fully aware of the situation. The BOCOG needs to
check with those NOCs, but we are firmly against illegal transfer of tickets,"
said Sun.
"The international sale of the tickets will be carried out by the
NOCs or agents authorized by the NOCs," he said. "The fraudulence is something
we try to draw attention to the public and we urge them to do the resale through
legal channels."
"For the victims, they have to take care of the consequences
on their own if they got it through illegal ways," he said.
The BOCOG put on
sale 6.80 million tickets, one quarter of which were distributed to over 170
national Olympic committees worldwide. For people outside China to buy the
tickets, they need to apply to their respective National Olympic Committees or
the authorized agents.
The rest of the tickets were sold inside China through
the official ticketing website www.tickets.beijing2008.cn, calling ticketing
hotline 8610-952008 or the Bank of China ticket outlets in the first three
phases.
And the fourth and final phase of ticket sales started on July 25 as
the last 820,000 tickets went on sale. All 250,000 tickets for events that would
be held in the capital were sold out on July 31 and cracking down on scalpers
was intensified.
"The scalping of tickets is prohibited by the national laws
and BOCOG is very supportive of investigating into the scalping cases or other
related illegal activities," Sun said.
A little under 90 people have been
detained by Beijing Police for scalping Olympics tickets since May and in some
case they may face up to 15 days in jail.
Xinhua
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