Fraud with World Cup tickets is on the rise according to German media. Bild am Sonntag reported on one incident where at least 15 people were conned out of several thousand euros after obtaining tickets on the internet auction portal ebay.
‘We are investigating cases against several individuals,’ state prosecutor Burkhard Vonnahme said about the activities which are said to involve World Cup sponsor Coca-Cola.

The newspaper said that the tickets on offer were said to come from a contingent made available by the sponsor as prizes, but once the buyer approached Coca-Cola with a letter confirming they had won, the letter was shown to be a forgery.

A spokesman for Coca-Cola said that they had some 12,000 tickets which were given away, partly as prizes. The letters shown on ebay could be identified as being forged as they had no signature or used a wrong company logo.

Ebay is said to have upped their security measures to prevent such offences from recurring.

Meanwhile police in the Czech Republic are also investigating a case of fraud against a Czech company that is offering tickets for the group stage as well as for the semi-finals and the final for prices between 370 and 9,000 euros, Czech radio reported on Sunday.

Posted: 04|26|06 at 3:40 pm. Filed under: Auction News.