eBay Told To Fight Harder Against Fraud

The online auction powerhouse eBay has lately come under increased pressure to sort out fraud- and theft-related nonsense occurring on its site. US retailers, as well as state authorities, recently called on Congress to require eBay, among other auction portals on the Web, to make mandatory the posting of product serial numbers in order to better help target those conducting the criminal activity.

Yesterday, Reuters released a report stating that a bipartisan consensus on a House Judiciary subcommittee has already shown strong backing for “legislative action,” pointing to the estimated $30 billion figure as far as losses go each year from organized theft.

$30 billion is quite a whopper, for sure, especially when one considers that that loss is calculated annually. (Of course, it’s likely less the farther one tracks back in time, and will presumably grow if the activity persists at the current trajectory.) I wonder how much of that hit consists of pilfered Zunes and Motorola phones. You know, ‘cause not too many are being sold "over the counter"….

In all seriousness, this illegal activity is very significant, and it should stop. When one thinks of the number of consumers who’ve done business with the perpetrators of such fraudulence (pretty big, for sure) one can rightly sense that a whole host of problems could in fact arise as a result, not the least of which could take shape as denial of customer service and tech support requests. On a grand scale, the long-term continuance of illicit sales could get a whole lot of people in a tizzy - end users and corporate entities alike.

So clearly the industry-wide stipulation for extra measures to be taken by eBay and it’s global competitors to ensure authenticity is logically sensible. Yes, on the whole, sellers with wares garnered legitimately will likely be slightly more inconvenienced as a result of the passing of such legislature. But the benefits of such a bill would be far-reaching all the same.

Besides, $30 billion is quite a big write-off. To expect the retailers to tolerate such losses is simply to fail to understand the purpose of industry. There’s certainly quite a bit of gray area when it comes to what’s okay and what’s not okay in your mind, as well as mine. But business is black-and-white.