Web auctions fertile ground for criminals
Published March 5th, 2006
An unemployed Reno man jailed last week on fraud charges allegedly made his living from cashing checks mailed by eBay bidders who thought they were purchasing his laptop computers, Reno police said.But authorities allege David Kazish never sent the bidders the computers, nor did he intend to.He did cash the checks, police said, which totaled more than $45,000 from at least 60 people nationwide, including San Francisco and Portland, Ore.As online auction fraud continues to explode each year as one of the top Internet fraud crimes, authorities warn consumers to be cautious of online crooks.This week, the National Consumers League and the Federal Trade Commission ranked online auction fraud the No. 1 Internet fraud scam in the nation in 2005 and placed Nevada as the third top location in the country where Internet fraud victims live. In Nevada, Internet auctions were the top fraud complaint with 728, the FTC reported Wednesday. Shop-at-home and catalog sales were the second leading Nevada fraud complaint.NCL said the average loss related to a fraudulent Internet auction was $1,155.
Related Articles