| Fraudesters who conned £300,000 from Ebay customers are in prison.
A London couple conned eBay customers around the world out of £300,000 by through smokes and mirrors. Despite eBay's tough security measures eBay shoppers were tricked into paying for everything from non existent cars to concert tickets.
The couple worked for crime bosses in Romania who offered fictitious goods. Unsuspecting shoppers bid for the items but were told they had been outbid.
The couple then contact all the bidders by email saying they had an identical item and offered it for sale. But not of the victims who paid for their goods received them. Instead the couple collected the cash using 12 aliases and got an accomplice - 23 year-old Romanian to pick up cash from Western union counters in East London.
The trio took a cut of the profits and sent the rest of the cash to their bosses in Romania. The racket was smashed after a suspicious Western Union stsff contacted the Police.
How does this present an opportunity?
Where there's a problem there's usually an opportunity. Since eBay opens up its trading platform to developers it's possible for an entrepreneur to develop an ebay application that would alert eBay users of suspicious transactions. This would not by itself be a cure but it would alert eBay shoppers in circumstances like this one that they should be suspicious when many failed bidders are being contacted after an auction had ended. |
