Almost 30 years ago, Richard Ponzio spent $27,000 buying hundreds of tickets for Super Bowl X in Miami, where the Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys.

The Mt. Lebanon-based travel agent and his clients never saw those tickets. The people who made the sale served time in jail, and Ponzio recovered the money through an insurance company. He vowed never to make the same mistake again.

But earlier this month, Ponzio began to fear that he might have inadvertently broken that vow. Last month, when the Steelers still had a chance to go to Jacksonville, about 50 people gave Ponzio $500 deposits for USA Sports Tours' Super Bowl trip package.

Shortly after the Steelers' loss to the Patriots, Ponzio inquired about the deposits, and USA Sports, an Atlanta tour company, stopped returning his phone calls.

On Feb. 10, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that more than 40 Eagles fans paid the same tour company thousands of dollars, only to discover on game day in Jacksonville that there were no tickets waiting for them.

Barbara Petito, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, said several Eagles fans had asked about filing consumer complaints against USA Sports. Once the complaints are filed, she said, her office will start investigating the tour company.

Most of Ponzio's clients paid for their deposits with credit cards and cash. Ponzio said he never sent the cash deposits to USA Sports' temporary office in St. Petersburg, Fla., and he has since returned that money to his clients. Credit card users have been contesting the charges.

Representatives for USA Sports started contacting Ponzio when the Steelers advanced to the AFC championship game. Ponzio said he spoke repeatedly with Bart Whitaker, president of USA Sport.biz in Atlanta, and Tom Hasting.

Neither Whitaker nor Hasting could be reached for comment.

"We did not sign any agreement," Ponzio said. "I told them we would sell their programs," at a commission rate of 7 to 10 percent. He said the tour company also contacted other area travel agencies.

Ponzio's agency was identified in USA Sports advertisements in the Post-Gazette and other publications as the local contact for information on package trips starting at $1,795.

Once the Steelers lost, the calls for refunds started coming in, and Ponzio told his clients not to worry.

He said he last spoke with someone at USA Sports at the beginning of the month. "They asked us to be patient," Ponzio said, "They were processing the refunds for Pittsburgh."

Apparently, however, the company was still making sales to Eagles supporters.

Lamont Sadowski, 39, of Berlin, N.J., told the Daily News that his employer wired $12,000 for four tickets to USA Sport.biz's Atlanta office. Fans were supposed to pick up their tickets at the Radisson Riverwalk Hotel in Jacksonville, but when Sadowski arrived, no tickets were available.

He spent the game at a bar near the stadium, drinking Corona and eating chicken wings.

"I felt violated," Sadowski told the paper.

"It's a shame," said Ponzio, 67, whose family started a travel agency in 1948. "These people think they can make a quick buck on the enthusiasm of the fans."