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Parents of New Zealand Olympians who have been caught up in an internet ticketing scam still have a chance of going to Beijing to watch their sons or daughters compete.
Premier Events Asia Pacific is the New Zealand Olympic Committee's official ticketing agency, and its managing director Malcolm Beattie said today he would do everything possible to get affected parents tickets because of their "horrible predicament".
Beattie told NZPA from Beijing that affected parents could email him immediately at malcolmb@premiereventsgroup.com.
"Tickets have long sold out but there are always ways with our friends who are official ticket people for other national Olympic committees.
"We swap with each other ... we can work it out - we will do our very best to try and get tickets for those distressed parents."
Beattie said he had secured tickets for Jill Eastham, mother of shooter Robert Eastham who was in a similar situation and last night found tickets for the mother of BMX gold medal contender Sarah Walker.
He thought that there were at least four cases in which parents of New Zealand Olympians had been scammed.
The Waikato Times reported today that the parents of New Zealand's male BMX rider, Marc Willers, were among those to have been caught out in the scam based in Arizona in the United States.
Yvonne and Alan Willers paid more than $700 via the beijingticketing.com website for tickets that did not arrive.
But they realised early that they had been duped and were able to secure legitimate replacement tickets.
Others who also purchased tickets via the www.beijingticketing.com site won't be so lucky after it was revealed yesterday it and another selling site, beijing-tickets2008.com, are bogus.
The NZOC said they were aware of the scam but wouldn't comment further at this stage.
The global scam is believed to have netted the fraudsters more than $50 million.
The beijingticketing.com site provides a London phone number but gives a registered office address in Arizona.
"That site is the biggest scam in the world, they have made millions of dollars worldwide," Beattie said.
"They are based out of Arizona somewhere and are being sued by the United States Olympic committee - if they can even find them.
"They are a complete fraud and anybody who gave them money off their website to unofficial people really are taking a hell of a risk," Beattie said.
He also reminded New Zealanders they had to collect their tickets in Beijing.
" We have only just had the tickets issued to us by Bocog (the games organising committee) and Bocog will not let us courier tickets out of China.
"We have set up an office in the New Zealand embassy in Beijing and we have informed people that they have to come there at allocated times to pick up their tickets."
He said about 2000 New Zealanders were travelling to the Beijing Olympics. This compared to the 1000 who went to Athens in 2004 and the 6000 to Sydney in 2000.
- NZPA
