London 2012 Olympics Tickets Hotels and Tours: Beware of the Fake Ticket Websites

Friday, January 28, 2011

London 2012 Olympics Tickets Hotels and Tours: Beware of the Fake Ticket Websites

http://www.london-tours-2012.com/
http://www.london2012-tours.com/
http://www.london-olympiad.com/

London 2012 Tickets: demand will far
outstrip supply.

Spyns will be offering tickets as part of its London 2012 tours however, unlike most of the planet which is offering them now, we will take reservations for hotels and non-Olympic activities (like walking tours of London for example) with tickets added to our tours after purchased via a licensed re-seller. Some have gotten a bit more creative according to London police.

Taking advantage of overwhelming demand for London 2012 tickets, illegal websites purporting to be "licensed ticket re-sellers" are cropping up on the internet. A battle is brewing in cyberspace. During my recent swing through London a few weeks ago, London 2012 organisers seemed to be in "what the f*ck are we doing mode" as the drop dead March 15 ticket sale date looms large on the calendar. In several meetings, I heard that tour operators like us could purchase tickets, then we couldn't, then we had to provide individual client's names, then we didn't, then we had to register for the ballot, then we didn't.

A few things are certain:

• Millions of tickets will go on sale in the spring
• The ticketing system is clearly a work in progress
• Like every previous Olympic Games, tickets will be bought and sold
• 50% of the tickets will go to Olympic insiders or VIPs (20% will surely be fartcatchers for IOC president Jacques Rogge) 
• Like every previous Olympic Games, organisers will pretend that there won't be a black market
• Scalpers will eventually acquire and re-sell tickets

In an interesting twist, fake websites purporting to sell London 2012 tickets are being targeted by a specialist police unit. Operation Podium has been set up to combat fraud and organised crime around the Olympic Games. The team is running 16 current operations and made 37 arrests in the past six months. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Downing said his top priority was to combat ticket fraud, especially bogus websites.

He said: "Someone may travel from a distant part of the UK, coming to London thinking that they have tickets for the 100m final for which they have paid thousands of pounds, only to find they have no accommodation, no ticket and no experience of a lifetime. "I don't want London to be associated with that.