The virtual vigilantes

Posted on 8 Feb 2008 at 14:48

When Andrew Holder bought a new electrical testing gadget on Ebay for £600 he was pleased as punch, but it never turned up. Holder tried to report the problem. "Ebay didn't want to know whatsoever, which is astonishing," says Holder. Ebay says all fraud problems should be referred to PayPal, but the vendor had insisted on payment by cheque or transfer, so PayPal couldn't help.

Next stop the police. "They listened to the problem, but said there was nothing they could do - the Warminster station only had one officer on duty and he simply didn't have time and my case went to the bottom of the in-tray."

It was then that Holder began trying to track the perpetrator himself and came across a forum dedicated to people who'd suffered the same fate. "Soon we set up another forum with 14 other victims and started to compare notes, trying to track him down through bank details," says Holder. "He was carrying out several frauds, using several accounts and many hijacked, legitimate accounts. He's purporting to sell everything from plasma TVs to outboard motors."

Through the forum, he found another victim had managed to raise a police investigation, and the investigation ballooned as a result. "It was only because of the forum we were able to co-ordinate all this. Since I'd reported the crime in Wiltshire and the investigation started in Hampshire, they had no way of tying the two together."

The constable involved quickly became overwhelmed with the sheer number of reports of Ebay fraud across the country, highlighting how limited police resources are (see web ID: 146028k for full story). Nevertheless, he was grateful for help from the home guard. "I'm pleased to see and encourage the work you're all doing," he wrote to the forum members. "I'm the only officer attached to this investigation and it's taking up all of my time. So the work you're all doing is providing me with some interesting leads of inquiry."

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Author: Stewart Mitchell