Fraud? Don't ring us
Reprtinted from Times Online
By Janet Daley
FIRST WE GOT a phone call from Germany to ask about a laptop computer that had supposedly been bought from my husband on eBay, and never received. Then there was an e-mail from an Italian who said the same. But we had never offered anything for sale on eBay.
Our alarm was obviously so genuine that the victims were persuaded that they had been defrauded by someone using a false name, especially as they had had to search the internet to find my husband’s actual e-mail address and phone number, as opposed to the phoney ones that had been provided by the eBay fraudster.
Clearly there was someone using the names and addresses of real people (presumably chosen at random) to mislead would-be buyers. We were implicated in a crime, and since our real home address was being published, we might have a knock on the door from the police or a brick through the window from an angry victim.
So began the process of attempting to rectify a potentially dangerous situation. EBay’s website has an elaborate procedure for reporting fraud. I tried using its system for establishing e-mail contact and it failed repeatedly (as, I have learnt since, it often does). Trying to communicate with eBay in the traditional, old- fashioned ways was hopeless. I discovered that the company scarcely exists outside the web. It seems to have no locatable presence in the real world — no telephone number that is obtainable and no address that is actually occupied.
Using the resources that are available to a journalist, I managed to contact the shadowy public relations firm that acts as eBay’s press spokesman. It could make no comment on this form of fraud, it said, without the details of our case. Our Italian victim helpfully supplied these, and we passed them on to the PR company, which promised to get back to us and never did.
EBay may say that buyers purchase at their own risk, but can it be acceptable for a company to incriminate innocent people and escape any responsibility? Anything that is circulated on paper (even a single page flyer) must contain the contact details of publisher and printer to cover legal liability.
It is outrageous that the internet can be a lawless zone for traders, a kind of virtual car boot sale where the usual rules of accountability do not apply.
Reprtinted from Times Online
By Janet Daley
FIRST WE GOT a phone call from Germany to ask about a laptop computer that had supposedly been bought from my husband on eBay, and never received. Then there was an e-mail from an Italian who said the same. But we had never offered anything for sale on eBay.
Our alarm was obviously so genuine that the victims were persuaded that they had been defrauded by someone using a false name, especially as they had had to search the internet to find my husband’s actual e-mail address and phone number, as opposed to the phoney ones that had been provided by the eBay fraudster.
Clearly there was someone using the names and addresses of real people (presumably chosen at random) to mislead would-be buyers. We were implicated in a crime, and since our real home address was being published, we might have a knock on the door from the police or a brick through the window from an angry victim.
So began the process of attempting to rectify a potentially dangerous situation. EBay’s website has an elaborate procedure for reporting fraud. I tried using its system for establishing e-mail contact and it failed repeatedly (as, I have learnt since, it often does). Trying to communicate with eBay in the traditional, old- fashioned ways was hopeless. I discovered that the company scarcely exists outside the web. It seems to have no locatable presence in the real world — no telephone number that is obtainable and no address that is actually occupied.
Using the resources that are available to a journalist, I managed to contact the shadowy public relations firm that acts as eBay’s press spokesman. It could make no comment on this form of fraud, it said, without the details of our case. Our Italian victim helpfully supplied these, and we passed them on to the PR company, which promised to get back to us and never did.
EBay may say that buyers purchase at their own risk, but can it be acceptable for a company to incriminate innocent people and escape any responsibility? Anything that is circulated on paper (even a single page flyer) must contain the contact details of publisher and printer to cover legal liability.
It is outrageous that the internet can be a lawless zone for traders, a kind of virtual car boot sale where the usual rules of accountability do not apply.
posted by Craig at
7:09 PM
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