An advert offering to pay for unwanted Expo tickets leans against a car on Chongming Island Sunday. Photo by Cai Xianmin

Scalpers are buying up the free World Expo 2010 in Shanghai gift packages that are being distributed to holders of Shanghai hukou (residence permits) on Chongming Island.

Some Chongming residents say scalpers appeared as soon as the packages were delivered to households on May 15, offering to buy them for prices below the face value.

"When the gift packages were being handed out, a minivan filled with scalpers went from house to house looking for families willing to sell their free packages," Tao Xinglong, a resident of Weixing Village in Chongming Island's Xiang-hua Township, told the Global Times Sunday.

The gift packages are being distributed to holders of Shanghai hukou (residence permits) district-by-district. The tickets do not carry names, making them easily transferable.

Tao said that the scalpers first offered residents 200 yuan ($29.29) for the packages, which include a transporta-tion card worth 200 yuan and an Expo ticket worth 160 yuan ($23.42). Some of the first to sell were elderly people who did not understand the value of the packages, he added.

However, the prices began to rise as other scalpers joined in the hunt. "Now no one will sell for less than 310 yuan ($45.38) a package," Tao said.