posted on March 31, 2004 05:51:15 PM new
"On the Web, vengeance is mine"
Last modified: March 28, 2004, 12:45 PM PST
By John Schwarz
You can almost hear the spurs jingling.
Self-appointed sheriffs scan eBay and Yahoo auctions looking for fraud. When they find it--or at least when they think they've found it--they warn buyers or make outrageously high bids themselves in order to end the auction and prevent potential victims from falling into the trap.
"People get tremendously frustrated" with fraud and scams, said Ina Steiner, the publisher of AuctionBytes.com, an online newsletter. "There's a sense of urgency that victims have, and it just doesn't synch-up with the time that it takes law enforcement to pursue these matters."
One of the self-appointed auction cops, who asked that his name not be used so that he would not lose his eBay privileges, sends e-mail to potentially fraudulent sellers asking them about their auctions. But he attaches surveillance software that reveals information about the seller, and he uses that information to track them down and report them to the Internet service provider. If the account has been hijacked from a legitimate eBay member--a common practice of fraudulent sellers--he calls the owner of the account as well. "My goal is to help other people," he said.
