Interesting article in the morning paper here:
More | Subscribe | 14-Day Archives (Free) | Long-Term Archives (Paid)
Online e-fence shields shady deals
Arrests involving secondhand stores in Portland just scratch the surface of a trend in which thieves turn to eBay as a safe and profitable venue to hawk stolen goods
Sunday, December 18, 2005
NOELLE CROMBIE
and JOSEPH ROSE
Lisa Barrow wouldn't think of buying stolen goods. Yet the 47-year-old Georgia woman, who surfs the Internet with a lazy Angora cat purring in her lap, doesn't question the bargains she finds on eBay.
In August, Barrow wanted a Brita water filter for her kitchen sink but cringed at the $30 retail price. On eBay, a seller in Portland, Ore., was offering one as "brand new-factory sealed." She bid $11 and won.
With a click of the mouse, Barrow joined the ranks of unwitting consumers each year who buy hot property. The Brita filter, authorities say, was pilfered from a store somewhere in the West before it was sold to a secondhand dealer in Portland.
Retail executives and police from Massachusetts to California say professional thieves have discovered that eBay may be a perfect fence. Many crooks, they say, are abandoning flea markets, garage sales and back alleys for the online auction juggernaut, exploiting an around-the-clock network of bargain hunters that spans the globe.
Statistics connecting eBay to what many retail executives say is a rise in organized retail theft are hard to find. Still, police and retailers agree that eBay, which hosted 1.4 billion listings last year and sells about $1,400 in goods per second, has revolutionized shoplifting.
"It's a national fencing operation," said Joseph LaRocca, vice president of loss prevention for the National Retail Federation. All crooks need, LaRocca said, is a seller ID. "You can sell that merchandise nationwide," he said, "and you are making a significant profit doing it."
But eBay isn't about to start watching its site for sellers who might be listing stolen merchandise, said Hani Durzy, a corporate spokesman. "We can't do it and we won't do it," he said.
With eBay featuring more than 60 million items at any given moment, Durzy said, the company has no way to verify the legitimacy of each listing. It's not eBay's job to play price cop and question bargains, Durzy said.
"It's not in our community's best interest, it's not in anyone's best interest, to just assume that based on what someone is selling that it's automatically stolen," Durzy said.
Guys, the story goes on for more pages, if you want to read it all, check the website here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1134798908252870.xml&coll=7&thispage=2
My point? I dunno, I was just reading the used parts classifieds here, complaints about a ripoff advertiser. Seems to me that he's small potatos compared to Ebay...let your concience be your guide.