Fraudulent seller "faked own death"

A nurse who faked his own death after being caught out selling non-existent computer games on eBay wept as he was sent to prison for six months. Martin Dunn from Kirk Sandall listed computer games for sale months in advance of their release date. Buyers were expecting to have to wait up to three months for delivery, so by the time they realised they had been scammed, Paypal's thirty day complaint period had elapsed.

Upon complaining by email about non-receipt of their goods, several buyers received an email purporting to be from Dunn's wife, saying that he had passed away and she was winding up his affairs. When Dunn was arrested, police found a document entitled "Is eBay Safe?"; the fraudster claimed that he had been running an experiment to expose flaws in the eBay system.

Of course, the old "sorry, I'm dead" line will be familiar to anyone who's sold very much on eBay. With a sad tear, I remember the grieving widow who told me that her husband had purchased a tie from me on the very day of his death, and that once she had paid off the cost of his funeral, she would pay me. Being the nice seller I am, I *did* send her a With Sympathy card ]:)

Any potential scammers should note that eBay and Paypal have now closed this loophole: sellers are not allowed to list pre-release items longer than thirty days before the release date, and Paypal's complaint period has been extended to forty-five days.

Benefits cheat eBay seller jailed

A fraudster has been jailed for selling £100,000 of goods on eBay while claiming benefits. Barry McNaughton from Portsmouth was jailed for six months, and ordered to pay back £16,700 in falsely claimed benefits.

Anti-fraud minister James Plaskitt added: 'Our investigators have more powers than ever before. Our message is clear – don't do it. There are no ifs, no buts – we will catch you.'

McNaughton was originally arrested for handling stolen goods, but it emerged that he was buying cheap goods from markets to sell on. The business plan was obviously pretty successful, as police found two £5,000 Rolex watches, a Tag Heuer watch, £1,300 of jewellery, a new plasma flatscreen TV, a Sony computer and Smeg kitchen appliances: the Department for Work and Pensions, who had brought the prosecution, said that they had never seen a benefits cheat make so much from eBay.

Thanks to Dan for the link.

Don't steal from your company to sell on eBay

It's almost comical, you open an eBay account yesterday, you steal $9300 worth of electrical products from the company you work for today, and take tomorrow off work to list them on eBay. Unbelievable? Well that's exactly what an employee of GE Energy in Nevada thought they could get away with!

Top marks to the supervisor that thought to check eBay for the missing items, but honestly - you couldn't make it up!

eBay fraudster jailed

A Herefordshire man has been jailed for eight months for fraudulent trading. David Hammond had advertised electronic equipment on eBay without having the stock to supply his customers. He had previously been banned from the site, but had recruited a customer to sell on his behalf. The prosecutor said that "he refused to speak to customers and encouraged his secretary to fob customers off. He buried his head in the sand and adopted a cavalier approach."

The offenses were committed in 2002 and 2003. Hammond's defence said that he had "turned his life around" since, now having a job where he was valued. He has offered to pay compensation to his customers.

But Judge David Matthews said that Hammond had abused his customers' trust, and his actions had "a knock-on effect for internet trading, which is now an important part of the economy".

Bratz the way to a mellow Christmas

You'd think buying your childs Christmas presents from eBay would be safe enough if they were described as new. Sure sometimes you have to trust to them not getting damaged or lost in the post but if they arrive and are factory sealed you should be onto a winner. Not the case for one family in North Carolina - their little girl opened up her brand new Bratz doll to find several pounds of marijuana hidden in the packaging!

Worth about $7000 that's one Christmas present that was turned over to the police in record time, and some dealer is going to be less than chilled out when they find their stash missing. Ah well, Bratz life!

Stolen PC sold to police

A Lake Ann [Michigan, USA] man was arrested for selling two stolen computers to police through the popular Internet auction site eBay. The 24 year old contractor stole two machines from a client company. Officers investigating spotted a wanted serial number on one of his eBay listings, and placed the winning bid. The seller thought he was meeting his high bidder to exchange goods and cash, but ended up being arrested instead.

Via eBay Business Opportunities (though presumably not actually posted *as* a business opportunity).

Man spends £920 on marmite toast and pleads poverty

A Welsh man bid £920 on eBay for the pieces of toast decorated with miniature portraits made from Marmite. The toast decorated by artist Dermot Flynn had portraits of celebrities such as Gordon Ramsay, Simon Cowell and Margaret Thatcher. He said they were for his wife for Christmas and proceeds went to a good cause, children's charity Room 13.

That was at the beginning of December, now it emerges that Mr Withers has just been jailed for producing and selling counterfeit films such as the Lost series. Sixteen weeks in jail and 100 hours community service for his wife is the punishment for sales thought to be £5000 worth of fake DVDs. Pleading mitigating circumstances the excuse put forward was that they couple have a seventeen year old pregnant daughter and needed money to bring her back to England - strange that they still had a grand left over for what's little more than a loaf of bread and jar of marmite!

Three not-so-wise men

A former Army Staff Sergeant has been jailed for up to eighteen months for selling gun parts on eBay. The prosecutor said that, in the wrong hands, the parts could have been used to make decommissioned weapons serviceable again. eBay had already suspended the man's account for contravention of their own weapons policy.
eBay account: NARU

A 42-year-old Spokane [Washington, USA] man pleaded guilty today to nine federal charges that include stealing inventory from Sacred Heart Medical Center and earning more than $644,000 by selling those items on eBay.
eBay account: NARU

A Massachusetts man has been jailed for six and a half years for swindling US$225,000 out of eBay buyers. The man sold Superbowl tickets on the auction site, but failed either to provide the tickets or to refund his disappointed customers. While out on bail for this crime, the man apparently tried to sell non-existent Corvettes on fake second chance offers.

DVD pirates must repay £25,000

A couple who made more than £25,000 selling pirate Disney DVDs on eBay and Amazon have been ordered to repay the money. Good news so far.

However, the couple's lawyer said they had now set up a business selling clothes on eBay. Why on earth have these people been allowed to continue trading? Sometimes eBay really do themselves no favours whatsoever.

You couldn't make it up

In a story that even Hollywood screenwriters might find incredible, it seems that the Oscar statue which Karl Malden has thought for the last twenty one years to be the one he won for A Streetcar Named Desire is, in fact, a fake. He only found out when the real one cropped up for sale on eBay.

In 1985, Malden sent his statuette, won in 1952, to its makers, R S Owens and Co. of Chicago, for replating. What he received back, according to David Quinto, his lawyer and spokesman, was a different statuette, stamped with the same serial number as the original.

Some twenty years later, that original was put up for auction on eBay, starting price US$30,000.

"The Oscar is a very personal award," Quinto said. "The Oscar is cheapened if it's sold as an article of commerce. If you can just buy it on eBay, it doesn't have the same meaning."

When officials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Oscars' awarding body, spotted the genuine Oscar for sale on eBay, they immediately had eBay close down the auction, and contacted the sellers demanding details of its provenance.

Randy Mariani claimed that he had worked in a potato chip business next to R S Owens, and that he'd found the statuette thrown out with the garbage, but an investigation discovered that the company had closed down before Malden had sent his award to Owens'. The Marianis had originally agreed to sell the statuette back to the Academy, but had reneged on that deal.

Karl Malden and the Academy are now suing the Marianis for copyright infringement and false representation.

Bad guys "don't lose sleep" about eBay bans

Three postmen who sold items stolen from the mail on eBay, have been jailed. The trio took items such as jewellery, ipods and mobile phones, valued at a total of £15,000, from the Royal Mail returns depot in Dallam. They were arrested last November after being caught on CCTV.

A Baltimore man has been convicted of stealing baseball memorabilia from the Orioles to sell on eBay. The stolen items included old Orioles media guides, used jerseys and game jackets. The thief was caught when a team employee saw one of the player's bobblehead dolls for sale on eBay before it was publicly available.

Five people from the Chicago area have been charged with selling stolen luxury goods on eBay. Shoplifters were delivering their stolen items to two pawn shops, from where they were listed for sale on the site. The five charged were all employed at the pawn shops.

An eBay spokeswoman said there's no way for the site to vouch for the origins of products sold there and that the only recourse company officials have is to ban suspect sellers from operating.

"The reality is, if you're a bad guy, you're not going to lose too much sleep about being kicked off eBay," said spokeswoman Catherine England. "At the end of the day, law enforcement has a much bigger stick than we do."

21 charged with fake SCO fraud

US law enforcement officials have charged twenty-one people with fraud relating to fake second chance offers sent to eBay buyers. The gang are accused of collecting more than US$5 million from more than 2000 transactions.

Generally, victims who bid unsuccessfully on items were led to believe they were being given a "second chance" to purchase items and were instructed over the Internet to send money via Western Union to be picked up by the seller or the seller's agent, generally in the Chicago area.

If convicted, each defendent faces a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison and a fine of $250,000, as well as paying back the money they stole.

As ever, the advice to those receiving second chance offers is to sign into My eBay and check the "items I didn't win" section, where any genuine second chance offers will show.

Tougher penalties for pirates

Music and film pirates should face ten year jail sentences, says a new report. Former newspaper editor Andrew Gowers has made a number of proposals to toughen up protection of the entertainment industry's intellectual property, but suggests that purely personal format swapping, like transferring CDs to an MP3 player should be made legal.

Gowings report estimated that up to 20% of the industry's turnover is lost due to piracy. It was welcomed by the Chancellor, who has announced an extra £5million to fund more action in this area by Trading Standards' officers.

A phone in the hand

"First Daughter" Barbara Bush's stolen mobile phone was briefly for sale on eBay Argentina yesterday. The seller also promised a bonus feature: 'the phone you bought will be delivered to your house by Osama Bin Laden in person.'

The lucky winner of the auction could have been the proud posessor of phone numbers for Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson as well as Barbara's presidential father and grandfather, but the phone has now been withdrawn from sale.

DVD pirate jailed

A man who sold pirate DVDs on eBay has been jailed for six months and fined £55,000.

Fact director Kieron Sharp said he hoped the fine would send "a strong message to those using auction sites such as eBay that they are not immune from prosecution and further action should they trade in counterfeit goods".

The counterfeit DVDs were produced in the Far East without any regional coding so that they could be sold worldwide.

Via the BBC.

Ticket swindler jailed

A conman who sold non-existent concert tickets on eBay and then tried to bribe his customers not to go to the police, has been jailed. Adam Cuthbertson's lawyer pointed to his guilty plea, and the fact that he had refunded all of his victims, as reasons to be lenient with the crook.

But Judge Charles Fox took a dim view of the deception between May and November 2005, telling him people like him could cause internet users to lose faith in sites like eBay. ... Spokesman for eBay Gareth Streeter said: "We worked with the South Wales Police on this case. As this case demonstrates, eBay is one of the worst places to sell illegally, due to the open and transparent nature of the listings and the traceability of the transactions which take place.

Cuthbertson had used a variety of different IDs on the site, re-registering with a new name each time eBay had banned him. When his victims complained, he refunded them and offered £50 compensation if they would drop their complaints.

eBay scam gang behind bars

One of the world's most successful identity theft gangs are now behind bars, reports The Times. Using cloned credit cards, they defrauded bank account holders across Europe and America, buying up expensive electrical items and then selling them on eBay. They also used the stolen cards to pay cash into their own Paypal accounts, which was later banked.

International police forces collaborated to catch the gang, but in a move worthy of the A-Team, much of their evidence was lost when a handcuffed gang member managed to jump up to the ceiling to flick a power switch, triggering layers of encryption on the gang's computer system, which still defies experts' best efforts to decode it.

The gang is thought to have been in operation for more than a decade, though the prosecution relates only to the period June 2003 to January 2005, during which they managed to pocket more than £750,000. The true extent of their illegal operations will probably never be known, said the prosecutor.

eBay in the news

Crime of the week: The defendants established business lines of credit with more than thirty businesses based on false and fraudulent financial information, and then used the fraudulently obtained lines of credit to obtain assorted high-end merchandise, which they subsequently sold on eBay. During the course of the scheme, the defendants defrauded more than 30 businesses of more than US$1.8 million.

Meanwhile, troops returned from Iraq will not be able to spend their Christmas bonus on eBay: Top brass were worried it was too much of a distraction, so brought in the ban across the MoD’s internet network. It applies to all 180,000 men and women in uniform AND 100,000 civilian staff. ... A spokesman said: "As with many other employers, the MoD does not allow its networks to be used for private transactions on commercial auction sites."

Happy Christmas from the Royal Mail: Devon postal workers are to stage a one-day strike next Monday.

eBay-alikes we like

An eBay-style website to auction meals at top restaurants will extend its reach into Edinburgh next month. Priceyourmeal.com, which launched in Glasgow in March, now has more than 80 restaurants on board, taking in excess of 700 bookings a week. Registered users can use the site to bid for meals at top restaurants in auctions or haggle directly with the restaurants over meal prices.

Slivers of Time is an online marketplace matching up temporary workers with employers, allowing customers to sell not spare items, but spare *time*. Need people to cover your lunchtime rush *today*? Need very flexible working to fit around your other commitments? We think this is a brilliant idea.

Phishers on the phone

Phishers are moving from email to the phone to try to steal banking and other personal information. A new batch of emails purporting to come from Paypal give out a telephone number for members to call to verify their data. Other scammers have even missed out the email altogether: victims receive a telephone call out of the blue from someone who knows their credit card number, and wants them to confirm the security code on the back: clearly a way to get around this new security feature in the system.

"Hackers are moving away from the Web and using something victims are more comfortable with: making a call," said Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing. [I *want* his job title!] "Consumers are programmed to enter in information on the phone. It's a natural evolution of phishing."

Callees and email recipients should beware: the phishers are getting more sophisticated. Many phishing emails now contain the recipient's real name rather than being addressed to "Dear valued customer" or similar. And, ironically, in an attempt to appear genuine, some phishing emails now contain warnings against giving your personal information to unverified parties: that, at least, is something the scammers have got right.

Stolen Lewis Carroll letter found through eBay

A sharp-eyed shopper spotted a letter written by Lewis Carroll for sale on eBay, and called a friend, a librarian at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Sure enough, a letter written by Carroll to "My Dear Winnie" (the daughter of writer George MacDonald) was missing: they hadn't even noticed. Thanks to eBay, police were able to track the purchaser, who gave the letter back to the library. Police are now trying to track the path of the stolen letter:

"Tracing it back all the hands it has gone through since it left Yale - that's going to be the difficult part," said Lt. Mike Patten, a spokesman for the Yale University Police Department.