Ebay Vigilantes?

It appears some collectors and dealers are starting to fight back against the fake and fraudulent merchandise being sold on Ebay. The following article in the Mercury News follows several collectors pursing some of the fraudulent items, and notifying Ebay bidders of the fakes. They have been researching the items, finding where they are produced and sold, lobbying Ebay to shut down sales and notifying buyers when items are misrepresented on Ebay auctions.

Ebay of course has a policy against 3rd party involvement, but Ebay also continues to hide behind its privacy policy in releasing information and at times seems reluctant to counter act suspicious items. So are they vigilantes or legitimate warriors against fraud. I prefer the ligitimate warriors, since the official oversight authorities and Ebay seem very slow and at times reluctant to investigate on their own.

From the Mercury News Online by Harriett Ryan:

Fake! Memorabilia collectors track down bogus items in eBay

LOS ANGELES - The pieces of Hollywood history were priced to move, even by the discount standards of eBay. Ten bucks put a bidder in the running for a dagger purportedly used in the filming of "Gone With the Wind," a decanter from "I Love Lucy" and a birdhouse from "Lord of the Rings." Bidding for other memorabilia, including a vase said to be from "Casablanca," opened at just 99 cents.

The bargain-basement prices offered by an antiques dealer on the west side of Los Angeles this spring sparked two reactions online: furious bidding and deep suspicion. While fans drove the prices up - the dagger sold for $713 - a group of seasoned collectors became convinced that the items were frauds.

"The most obvious fakes I'd ever seen," pronounced James Tumblin, a Hawaii resident who said he owns the world's largest collection of "Gone With the Wind" memorabilia.

Unable to convince police a crime was afoot, the collectors became a sort of Internet posse. They traced the dagger to a factory in modern-day Japan, the birdhouse to a Big Lots store and the vase to the former West Germany - a country whose existence postdated "Casablanca" by seven years.

They used their findings to warn other bidders and lobby eBay to shut down online stores selling the dealer's merchandise.

"I really felt people had a right to know," said Jennifer Henderson, a vintage clothing collector who said she and her husband, Bryce, spent "more (hours) than I am comfortableadmitting" investigating the dealer, Global Antiques.

EBay suspended the two consignment stores that listed the items in June. One of the consignment stores, AuctionDepotLA, has since closed.

Auction fraud is the most commonly reported crime online, according to the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center, also known as the IC3. As local police and auction houses struggle to keep up, bands of citizens increasingly are stepping into the gap and making what amount to cyber citizen arrests.

"Our speculation is that the posse mentality can take care of these situations faster than the host can," said Craig Butterworth, a spokesman for the National White Collar Crime Center, which jointly administers the IC3 with the FBI.

To read the full article click HERE.