Two months after the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) took court action against Coast2Coast Tickets for allegedly reselling of Winter Olympic tickets, which the organization prohibits, VANOC has sued another Canadian travel company, Winnipeg-based Roadtrips, for doing the same thing.

According to the Vancouver Sun, the latest VANOC suit claims Roadtrips and its president, David Guenther, have engaged in “materially false, deceptive and misleading advertising, acts and practices.”

Dave Cobb, who is a VANOC executive vice president, told the paper, “[Roadtrips] doesn’t have the authority to sell Olympic tickets and that’s what they’re doing,” later telling the Sun that VANOC may initiate similar legal actions against other secondary market ticket sellers.

Guenther’s email response to the newspaper was that the charges are “completely false,” and that the suit is “… an ill-conceived attempt to defame our corporate reputation and are based solely on the fact that Roadtrips disagrees that VANOC has the right to limit the secondary distribution of tickets.”

The paper also reported that VANOC not only says people who buy tickets from brokers such as Roadtrips might see those tickets seized and invalidated because they were improperly sold, but that the lawsuit alleges the fees charged by Roadtrips for tickets “grossly exceed” face value.

This is not the first time Roadtrips has found itself in hot water.

Last September, Roadtrips was one of the companies that struggled with filling some of its Beijing Olympic ticket orders, which led to several customers ending up without tickets for the Opening Ceremonies. Roadtrips.com was forced to issue refunds for tickets purchased that the company could not deliver. The company was later sued by a Texas attorney on behalf of other aggrieved ticket buyers.Roadtrips told the Vancouver Sun that that lawsuit had been dismissed.

Also in the e-mail to the Sun, Guenther said that Roadtrips had a proven, 17-year track record and that the company has been clear that it is not associated with VANOC.

“By its actions, VANOC is trying to maintain the monopoly on ticket distribution and travel package sales that it has sold to its U.S. based agents,” Guenther’s reportedly said in the e-mail.

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