The Serious Fraud Office have today charged six individuals in relation to the online sales of tickets.

Sky News and E Festivals are today reporting the news of six individuals – related to the Xclusive Tickets Limited and Xclusive Leisure & Hospitality companies – who were today charged of offences relating to the fraudulent sale of tickets for sporting and music events.

Scammed Leeds Festival goers were among those affected and mentioned in the announcement and nearly 600 people have so far completed questionnaires on the SFO website in relation to the case.

This case highlights yet again the issue of buying tickets from unofficial sites. You should always buy your Leeds tickets from approved ticket sellers only. And if you visit an unauthorised website then you are not guaranteed to be buying a genuine ticket and may not be allowed access to the festival site. So why take the risk?

We promise that we will only ever link to official ticket partners – and we will only ever list a seller after it has first been approved and published by the Leeds Festival event organisers.

We may sound like a broken record with this often-repeated message, but we believe that through our site, the official site, and others like it, the message of avoiding ticket touts will be heard and the advice eventually followed.

All pre-sale tickets for Leeds 2010 were sold out at the start of October – no website should be offering tickets for sale at the moment, as tickets will not come back on sale until the Spring 2010 (around the end of March). To keep yourself up to date with the latest announcements, sign up to our Leeds Festival Newsletter. We will let you know as soon as tickets come back on sale, and we will also reveal the latest rumours and line-up announcements.