So...Feds are aware that Ebay is being used to fence stolen items

[Horse with no Name]

Yet...they haven't shut them down?
They haven't confiscated profits?

Just ask yourself what they would do to a local pawn shop dealer that was caught fencing.

[Kagemusha]

1. Uh... excuse me?

Is Ebay aware of the fenced items? Isn't there criminal intent involved in fencing?

[LynzM]

2. I believe that eBay and Feds work together....

Last I knew, they had a whole department (investigators, stats people, legal people, etc.) that worked with the Feds to do investigation and prosecution of this kind. It's not really ebay's fault per se, any more than it's the fault of a landlord who leases business space to someone who turns out to be pawning stolen goods, IMO.

[Horse with no Name]

5. Ebay chooses to look the other way when they are making money

I would expect that if you have a power seller on there selling 50-100 of the same types of electronics, that Ebay should require more information.
I noticed on there that people were selling "empty" (yeah right) bottles of hydrocodone for upwards of $500 for an "empty" bottle.
A friend of mine that I worry about her addictions purchased them on there. I notified Ebay that they should look into this practice...and I never heard from them.
It was 6-8 months after that the practice stopped.

[crikkett]

3. But Ebay isn't fencing, the fencers are fencing.

In pawn shops the pawn broker actually takes possession of and sells the stuff. I think that's the difference.

TO kill Ebay might be to kill teh newspaper for allowing people to place classified ads.

[hobbit709]

4. Did ebay know?

If they acted after becoming aware, then what's the problem?

[BushOut06]

6. Maybe we should close down all newspapers while we're at it

I'm pretty sure that people have been using classified ads to sell stolen merchandise for years.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. If a pawn broker takes in items that are found to be stole the item is confiscated

And they lose whatever money they paid for the item.

Ebay might fall under different regulations, however. They charge the seller a fee and if the seller is the person moving stolen items (knowingly or not) the seller would be out the money for the fee.

[ContraBass Black]

8. When people sell stolen goods in an open market place, do the police

Raze the market?

[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

9. Major bust on our block last spring

An idiot up the street owns a PC store around the corner. Apparently someone on EBay wanted to buy a Dell computer, and it was being sold by said idiot's store. The problem was the tag on the Dell was from the City of Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Oops

US Postal Service, FBI, ATF, SWAT and others raided his business, house, and a few other locations simultaneously. Pretty wild. It turns out someone stole a ton of surplus computers from the school district's storage building and tried selling some through EBay

DBDB