Sports fans travelling to Beijing for the Olympics have been fleeced of tens of thousands of dollars in an elaborate global ticketing scam.

The website, www.beijingtickets.com, is being investigated after the International Olympic Committee received complaints from hundreds of people in Britain, the US and Australia who had handed over up to £30,000 for tickets to events in Beijing, only to find the tickets did not exist. The IOC is launching legal action in a Californian court today to shut down the site.

As of July 27, all events – except football matches outside Beijing – have been officially sold out. However the scam website was today still advertising hundreds of tickets for sale, including seats worth $2150 to this Friday’s opening ceremony.

The website features official-looking Olympic logos (which in itself is a breach of copyright) and is so professional looking it reportedly even fooled online fraud specialists.

It claims to have offices in London, New York and Sydney but these appear not to exist. The London telephone number continually rang out when the Times Online tried to phone this morning.

The website has previously been accused of fleecing British music fans in a similar scam. In March a newspaper investigation found that the site's parent company, XL & H Ltd had sold non-existent tickets to Take That fans for concerts in Manchester and Glasgow.

Among Olympic fans who have been duped is Texas-based travel agent Jolanta Sochacka who bought tickets for her family of seven through the site. When she asked a friend to check the address of the company in Phoenix, Arizona, the friend found an empty office that showed no sign of any company having based itself there.

An Australian victim, Kerry CHikarovski, is the former leader of the conservative Liberal Party in New South Wales.

Ms Chikarovski, who paid nearly $A300 (£150) for several tickets on her credit card, told a Sydney radio station that she initially went with the website because it had been the top ticketing site for the Beijing Olympics listed on Google in the past 11 months.

"It's incredibly professional," Ms Chikarovski told ABC Radio today.

"I'm not surprised that people like me believed it was real - it's just incredibly sophisticated.”

The British Olympic Committee said in March that it was working with Chinese Olympic officials and the IOC to crack down on rogue ticket traders.