Buying a fake World Cup ticket isn’t the only scam that awaits the unwary footie fan online. As the tournament in South Africa reaches its climax and excitement mounts in the lead up to the final, fraudsters are continuing to augment their attacks with a variety of World Cup-related email ruses. Supporters will need a sharp defensive line-up to keep them out.

Paul Wood

Despite FIFA’s stringent rules about distribution and resale, there are still World Cup tickets on offer from unauthorized online outlets. Some of these will be old-fashioned touts using new channels to sell tickets at higher than face value. Some will be genuine people who bought tickets and now can’t go, but are unaware of the resale rules (which state that tickets can only be transferred to another named person with FIFA’s permission). And some will be outright fraudulent: the tickets are forgeries or don’t exist at all.

The end result for the ardent fan is the same: they risk flying themselves to South Africa at great expense only to find they are refused permission to the stadium. Read the rest of this entry »