Closing the door on internet fraud

Jun 11 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

While eBay has created millionaires and new businesses, it has also spawned new opportunities for fraudsters. Andrew Mernin hears how the trading empire is striking back.

IT was once used to sell an entire town in Texas, helped an aircraft enthusiast pick up a jet for £3m and facilitated the sale of Margaret Thatcher’s handbag for £103,000.

And it has now become the primary source of income for thousands of cash-strapped Brits battling for financial survival in the recession.

Internet auction site eBay is now the main revenue stream for 178,000 people across the country, while millions more use it to generate extra spending power.

But as its popularity grows – it currently has 84 million worldwide users – so too does the level of resources needed to police it.

EBay dispatched one of its top men to the North East recently to explain to the region how it has evolved to meet new challenges and how it undertakes work with the police to tackle fraudsters.

Steve Edwards, senior manager of law enforcement relations in the UK and Ireland, used the North East Fraud Forum’s annual conference to give a behind-the-scenes insight into the eBay empire.

Similarly to Google, eBay can often appear to be a faceless entity run by machines and closed off to the world.

However, in reality it employs 10,000 people and works very closely with the law enforcers and trading standards to help stamp out global fraud.

Last year in the UK, eBay assisted the police in more than 7,500 investigations and the arrest and conviction of nearly 200 criminals.

But, as Mr Edwards explained, ridding the site of fraudsters while not compromising the interests of law- abiding users is not always easy.

“We don’t charge law enforcement anything and if a police officer says I found a hole in your system, then we comply.”