![[ Max ]](http://www.n-line.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/themes/n-line/images/max.png "Hover over this button to maximise the header graphic; it will minimize when you move away")
ebay Fraud and Sentencing Law
Published June 7th, 2005Tagged: law | self-babble | technology | uk
Bearing in mind that I have a Sentencing and the Penal System exam tomorrow I thought I would give an illustrative example of the sentencing system being too lenient (although I think it’s normally fairly harsh) by discussing some thieving little sh*t who rips people off on ebay.
Why is this wrong? Well, he made ripped off over 80 people and nabbed £70,000 over a one-year period yet he only has to pay back £615 and spend a year in prison. Now just think about this for a moment. He has made a total of £69,375 and lost a year of his life (2 if you count the “work” for ripping ebayers off).
This means that he has had an net income of almost £35,000 over for two years. It actually becomes an economically sound enterprise! Some punishment!
And probably din’t pay tax on any of that either ;-)
It’s my view that ebay’s set-up encourages scammers and their so-called safe trading assurances are worthless. I’d be interested in hearing from anybody who feels they have been mislead by ebay and, in particular, with regard to the comapny’s failure to provide full seller contact information to buyers and their claim that payments through Paypal are protected up to £500. Please e-mail me on ecct@btconnect.com [added by Nick: please copy any reply as a comment to this post]