Alleged Olympic Ticket Scam Shut Down

A federal judge temporarily shut down a Web site August 5 that Olympic officials claimed was defrauding customers by falsely advertising tickets to the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

The operation failed to deliver promised tickets to the Games, and U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ordered Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality from using more than a dozen Web site domains, according to the Los Angeles Times.

U.S. Olympic Committee lawyers said BeijingTicketing.com cheated numerous U.S. residents out of thousands of dollars by falsely promising to deliver tickets.

A recent mass e-mail from the ticketing Web site said, "Our suppliers have not been able to honour their commitments to us in supplying tickets for the Summer Olympics, despite having received written assurances from these suppliers," according to the Times. It advised customers to immediately seek refunds from their credit card companies.

Houston attorney Jim Moriarty told the Times he spent $12,000 on tickets and wondered why it took so long for Olympic officials to intervene.