The FBI are looking for a man called Nicolae Popescu, who is being accused of running a cyber-crime gang, who sell non-existent cars on the
internet. These ‘cars’ have been sold on the website eBay; the criminal is
thought to have made around £1.8 million from the fraudulent sales. The gang
was also known to have used other websites such as Cars.com and AutoTrader.com.
Customers were lead to believe that what they were purchasing was legitimate
and then money was handed over to the criminals using methods such as PayPal.
The reason to be wary of these types of crimes on the
internet, as a huge trend for internet shopping has come about over the last
few years, it will become increasingly easier to commit these crimes sorts of
crimes. With more of the population getting online everyday and many of these
then moving on to buy/sell products online, who can safely say that who they are
buying from are a legitimate source. Obviously this case is rare and the extent
to which it has gone is very different to most online fraud cases. Aside from
this case, sometimes it is not just that the products do not exist; it is that
the products are different to the one advertised, or that the products are
fake.
Do we need an easier way for internet sales to be monitored to make sure what we are buying is exactly what we think?
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