By Jo Best, 12 October 2004 12:55
NEWS A 17-year-old boy from Wales, who made over £45,000 from selling non-existent goods on eBay, spent the proceeds on living the high life and taunted his victims about it over email, police told courts yesterday.
The teenager, who can't be named due to his age, managed to swindle 100 people out of thousands of pounds, police told Cwmbran youth court during his trial, and blew the victims' money on a wannabe-millionaire lifestyle.
The teen bought expensive electrical goods, including a hi-fi, flat-screen TVs and PCs, purchased a quad bike, paid for limousine rides for him and his friends and lived the high life on holiday in New York, even treating mates to a helicopter ride over the city.
Initially, the youth pretended to sell mobile phones over the auction site, then moved onto advertising non-existent camcorders and other expensive items.
Paul Moore of the prosecution told the court the boy could was "addicted" to the auction site because it gave him "a buzz".
He went on to send emails to those he had conned, telling them how we was spending their cash. One victim lost £2,500 to the scammer, who had set up three bank accounts in order to handle the proceeds of the fraud.
The eBay teen admitted 21 counts of fraud worth over £16,000 and asked the court to take 64 more offences amounting to £28,860 into consideration.
The boy will be sentenced at Newport Crown Court.
Comments
There are 10 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard Walsh
This is an inherit flaw within the eBay selling forum. Too much is based on trust! eBay needs to pull its head out of the clouds and realise that unless they vet all eBay sellers problems like this will continue!
2. Arnold
Only buy from sellers with good feedback. This guy probably had little or no feedback to his various identities... its the only way buyers can tell who's genuine and trustworthy
Also buyers are protected against fraud as long as they stick to Ebay's payment conditions
3. Phil
He should be made to pay the money back to all those people. If jail term is decided, he should pay back the money it costs to keep him locked up. Why should you & I be punished thorugh higher taxation to pay for prisons for his mistakes?
4. eBay Seller
Re Arnolds comment "Only buy from sellers with good feedback."
Is this not "Chicken and egg" syndrome? You only buy from sellers who have good feedback, but new sellers can not get feedback because no one is buying from them because they have no feedback
This is eBays fault because they should have stopped him selling before it got to this number of ripped of buyers.
5. Alex T
He should be forced into a toilet attendants job for the next 5 years, and the proceeds of his wages should go back to the people who he scammed =)
6. David B. WIldgoose
I agree. If he doesn't pay back the money he has stolen then he has, in effect, got away with it.
7. Kevin Bulcock
He is not the first and probably won't be the last.
Until eBay are made to take financial responsibility for this type of criminal activity the dishonest will continue to take advantage of eBay's appalling attitude towards security.
In one case the same person has committed the same crime 3 times via the eBay site despite successful prosecutions by the police.
8. Brian Burkill
Regarding the feedback and only buy from people with good feedback...
Add to that only buy from people with POSITIVE feedback OR from New eBayers who have zero feedback.
A rule of thumb is not to buy from anyone with NEGATIVE feedback. It only takes one sale from new to create negative.
Ok, the guy can create new accounts each time, but this is a pain and if he uses 'anonymous' email addresses (such as hotmail), he has to submit bank details for verification. eBay can quite easily tie those up, even if there are multiple bank accounts.
I have never had a problem with eBay, apart from timewasting non paying bidders, who get negative feedback from me.
Use Paypal, its free and secure, and you are covered up to a certain limit.
9. Frank Smith
Re Arnolds comment "Only buy from sellers with good feedback"
You can use 'Escrow' for large payments, its really cheap!
If its too good to be true it is!
This happened last year when a guy built up good feedback with low value items then sold laptops that he then couldnt get hold of.
eBay should offer a confirmed address service like Paypal does.
10. anonymous
This boy got me. I tried to buy a present for my parents, unfortunately chose him as the seller and soon was down £500! I hope he has to pay back every penny and goes to jail as well!