After selling - but never delivering - several laptop computers on internet auction sites TradeMe and eBay earlier this year, 20-year-old Tamatea man Michael Shaw is now in jail.
Judge Phillip Connell said TradeMe did not need crooks like Shaw abusing the system and sentenced him to 12 months jail. He
gave Shaw leave to apply for home detention, but did not defer his sentence at the Napier District Court yesterday.
Shaw had earlier pleaded guilty to a string of fraud offences which began when he offered three non-existent laptop computers for sale on New Zealand internet auction site TradeMe in January this year.
Three people from Wanganui, Wellington and Auckland paid Shaw money for the laptops.
He then went to ground, never delivering the advertised laptops.
While on bail for the first offence he moved on to international fraud, selling several of the 22 laptops he offered for sale on American site eBay to people overseas. These laptops never existed either.
It wasn't difficult for the TradeMe fraud team to find Shaw, said Michael O'Donnell, TradeMe's business manager. Acting on information supplied by TradeMe, Napier Police seized Shaw's computer and he pleaded guilty to using a document to defraud.
Shaw is the first person to be successfully prosecuted since TradeMe restricted access to its service at the end of last year, allowing only New Zealanders (or Australians with a New Zealand bank account) to sell goods on the website.
This brought sellers coming under a single legal jurisdiction and police force, Mr O'Donnell said.
"This case is evidence that people were no longer anonymous on the internet," Mr O'Donnnell said.
He said the Napier police were "outstanding", carrying out the fastest prosecution TradeMe had encountered.
Judge Connell said it was relatively easy to register on TradeMe, but this was not a criticism of the system.
Cunning and motivated by greed, it was "just a matter of getting money as quickly as you could rip it off people", Judge Connell said.
At one point he purchased one of the items he had advertised for sale on the website, which gave him a good sales record.
Shaw indicated he wanted to work to pay the reparation he owed - $3660 for the first round of offending and $6592.70 for the second.
