More often than flea markets and pawn shops, stolen goods show up on eBay

Recently in the news, there have been a few cases where victims of theft have discovered their own missing belongings up for auction on eBay. That's a lucky find for them, because it's a lot more probable that those listings would have gone on undetected.

Criminals turn to Internet marketplaces as a venue to sell goods due to the anonymity of buyers and sellers online. Compared to a face-to-face transaction attempting to sell merchandise from the back of a truck or to a pawn shop, it's less risky for a thief to go online. Also, it's difficult to determine if items being sold online are stolen.

To counter this growing problem, there is proposed legislation in the works known as the E-fencing Enforcement Act of 2008 which would require an operator of an online marketplace (such as eBay or Amazon.com) to retain and provide, upon request, contact information for high-volume sellers and remove listings whenever it has a "good reason to believe the goods or items were unlawfully acquired". The bill defines a high-volume seller as someone who offers a single batch of merchandise worth more than $5,000, or more than $12,000 in products over a year.

EBay officials say they already have policies aimed at verifying the legitimacy and safety of items sold on the site. The company readily provides seller information to law enforcement officials when requested, making the legislation unnecessary.

Another common scheme involves "returning" stolen goods to retail stores.

As part of the scam, merchandise is shoplifted/stolen and another identical item is purchased from a retail store. They scan the receipt into a computer to print counterfeits and later return to stores for credit in the form of gift cards. Those gift cards are then sold online.

A few warning signs for stolen goods on eBay:

• Merchandise listed as NWT or "new with tags"
• Priced below wholesale
• Multiple items offered by one seller
• Goods from a company's newest product line
• Items that are not yet available in stores
• Products matching descriptions of goods recently stolen in quantity
• Sellers with zip codes in the same vicinity as recent thefts
• Gift cards -- especially in large amounts -- from various retailers
• Short auction durations
• Sellers requesting money orders for payment (soon to be dis-allowed on eBay)
  

(Note that these conditions, when seen in combination, may be reason for caution -- not necessarily so when observed as a single condition alone.)

Further reading:

Technology opens new outlet for stolen goods

Thieves turn to online auction sites to move stolen goods