Catching up on my news feeds I read that thousands of fake or bogus tickets for the World Cup are being sold on unofficial websites for many times their face value. It is not surprising, but if you are thinking about heading over to South Africa purchase tickets from approved operators.

Use approved operators
The England group games, semi-finals and finals are sold out and fans are advised to try the five-FIFA approved operators who have tickets: Thomson Sport/Sportsworld, Thomas Cook Sport, Keith Prowse, Emirates Tours and BAC Sport.
Read tips on travel safety in South Africa this summer.
Response on holiday booking during World Cup
I wonder what impact the World Cup is having on bookings in June and July, and if more of us will stay at home and then go on holiday in August or later in the year. If you are a travel agency, I would be interested to hear the response you have had.
Your plans for this summer
Are you heading to South Africa this summer? Will you stay at home while the World Cup is on or will you be going on holiday just to get away from the continuous football on the television? I will be staying at home in Leeds and intend to go on holiday in September when the kids are back at school.
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Stef | 30 March, 2010 at 8:47 am
Living in South Africa, i pray that we get good publicity and that fraudsters that sell bogus world cup tickets get what they deserve!
Nick | 31 March, 2010 at 10:18 am
Darren
There is always a rush for last minute bookings the day after England gets knocked out. The later they get knocked out or if they win it! This is better for us as people in a good mood spend more.
It has a bit of an effect on bookings, mostly after the first round.
We had customers who did not think about the world cup and wished to travel to South Africa during it and we could not get any rooms, or the ones we could get where double peak season price.
I understand that the South African Government has acted on this; also as we got closer to the date, prices have come down as local hotels have found people generally are not staying much longer than they need to. At the start everyone was greedy, now prices are better. But last year when people where booking this years holidays to South Africa, it did not go down well.
For holidays elsewhere, pray England stays in to the semi-final and if you do not mind travelling at that time you will get a last minute bargain.
Darren Cronian | 31 March, 2010 at 11:07 am
Thanks for that Nick! Interesting reading. The thought did pass my mind about spending a week somewhere warm to watch the football, but going to risk it and hope we get some sunshine during June and July!
Francois | 31 March, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Unfortunately there is always a scam of some sort, as long as there is a demand for something, there will probably be a ‘fake’ version or scam going.
I dont know how many times I have apparently ‘won’ the lottery too, its amazing how much the net is riddled with fraudsters….that being said, its also riddled with gullible fools, and people who must be plain refusing to check if a website is secure, or has a valid certificate before making purchases because they should no better by now, maybe they deserve to have their fingers burned.
Mark | 9 April, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I would love to travel to SA to just experience the first world cup in Africa. However I think I will probably have to stay in Bangkok and watch all the matches online. I will however try to catch most of the matches even if I have to completely rearange my schedule. Fake/Bogus tickets are unfortunate, hopefully not too many people get tricked.
anubhav kapoor | 7 June, 2010 at 1:50 pm
You are totally right about the bogus tickets starting to surface. And this is not just the actual tickets but even competitions that promote themselves, saying that they will deliver actual tickets once you enter a certain kind of discount scheme with them. Just three days back, there was News of one such group in Tokyo that had made millions of dollars through participation by people who believed in their promotional ad and they had no ticket bookings or anything close to that to offer!
6 responses to “Bogus World Cup 2010 Tickets on sale”