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What I discovered, however, was that the 2006 Fraud Act, which came into effect in January 2007, should give the police in England and Wales more room for manoeuvre when dealing with such cases - it's just that they lack the resources to do so. As Detective Sergeant Dick Bollard of the Sussex Major Fraud Unit explains, "The Fraud Act doesn't really give the police any additional powers, although it creates additional offences for which there are powers of arrest. Instead, it moves the goalposts in terms of proving a case, and it means that a lot more of what is reported to us can now be treated as a crime. To put it simply, we no longer need to prove that a victim has been deceived or has lost money, we just need to prove that this was the intention of the offender. This allows us to treat as a full offence what once would have been classed as an attempt at deception. However, our resources have not changed - we still have the same number of officers working on fraud cases, so we still need to filter the cases to ensure best use of our resources."

I was on the borderline of what the police felt they could investigate, but they were too busy to do so, at least for a £500 computer.

The Fraud Act has other ramifications for online shopping. Importantly, victims of credit or debit card fraud must now report the incident to their bank rather than the police. The bank will then involve the police if necessary. Some see this as a positive development, cutting down on the bureaucracy involved in processing fraud investigations and removing some of the hassle for the cardholder. Others complain that it amounts to the privatisation of the judicial system, allowing

Sound advice

While waiting for the police to dismiss my report, I also called in at the Citizens Advice Bureau, which offers free legal advice from more than 3,000 locations throughout the UK. Naturally, as a registered charity that relies largely on volunteers, it's understaffed and overworked. You can expect to wait for an hour or so to see an adviser, and even then your initial visit will be a ten-minute 'diagnostic session' designed to gauge the nature of your enquiry.

Some branches also run telephone advice lines that offer a similar gateway assessment of your needs. Whichever route you choose, the chances are you'll be handed the Citizens Advice guide to buying over the internet, which contains useful information on dealing with online retailers, but not much on failed eBay transactions with private sellers.

The adviser also suggested that I phone Consumer Direct, a government-funded service that works alongside Trading Standards to offer information and advice on consumer issues. If anything goes wrong with a purchase and your complaints to the trader have gone unanswered, this should be your first port of call. They'll take down all the details, give you a case number and, if necessary, refer you to your local Trading Standards office, which may well investigate. Again, this will happen only if there's evidence of systematic fraud involving a group of victims. For me they could advise only one course of action - the small claims court.

I also checked out some of the many forums dedicated to PayPal and eBay. The auction site's own forum at http://forums.ebay.co.uk is the obvious choice, but the likes of www.auctioncut.com, www.auctionbytes.com and www.paypalsucks.com provide valuable opportunities to swap experiences and information with other users. However, they can also be rather defeatist. I saw dozens of posts suggesting that the small claims procedure is expensive, time-consuming and not worth bothering with. Hardly the most constructive advice.