Passports with 100 country stamps are selling for more than Dh1,700
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Expo 2020 Dubai merchandise is being sold for thousands of dirhams online as fans look for mementoes of the world’s fair.
Advertisements on classifieds website Dubizzle show yellow passports with country stamps on sale for up to Dh1,750 ($476).
Shops on site sold the collectables for only Dh20. Many visitors tried to get all 192 country stamps by visiting each pavilion. They were the must-have expo souvenir, with more than 700,000 sold in a little more than a month after the event started.
Similar ads are being posted on social media app TikTok, with stamped passports selling for more than Dh500.
Several of these ads have been posted in April, only days after the world’s fair closed its doors on March 31.
Other items on sale include stuffed toys of the expo mascots, expo logo pins, expo-themed Monopoly board game and gift items from country pavilions – all which were either free or did not cost more than Dh300 at the expo.
On Dubizzle, one advertisement shows an expo passport with 100 country stamps on sale for Dh1,750.
Another one shows a “limited edition” Pikachu mask from the Japan pavilion on sale for Dh1,500.
An explorer map with 200 country pavilion stamps is being advertised for Dh5,000.
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On TikTok, a number of accounts dedicated to the sale of expo items have been created.
They are posting videos that display passports filled with stamps, with one video that received more than 30,000 views.
That account is selling the yellow passport with more than 60 stamps for Dh550.
“It’s for collectors and people who did not get the chance to complete or have the opportunity to visit Expo 2020,” a post by the account owner said, after users replied that the account was “scamming people for money”.
In February, con men were selling Coldplay concert tickets, a free event that took place at the expo, for Dh400 to Dh600.
Organisers had warned visitors against buying tickets for the concert from fraudsters.
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Updated: April 17, 2022, 3:43 PM
