A couple were jailed yesterday after defrauding thousands of customers around the world through the internet auction site eBay. In what one detective described as the biggest online scam he had seen, the pair stole £298,796 from unsuspecting bidders they called idiots.
Nicolae Cretanu, 30, was sentenced to 3½ years and his wife Adriana, 23, was given 30 months for an elaborate scam that lasted two years.

A relative of the pair coordinated the scheme from Romania and the gang advertised fictitious goods, including cars, motorcycles, war memorabilia, electrical items, tickets to sporting events and parachute trousers, then contacted bidders saying they had failed in their attempt to secure the item.

They used sophisticated software to garner email addresses and, using a pseudonym, offered bidders a "second chance" to purchase similar products, telling the customer to pay by money transfer through Western Union before receiving their purchase. The items always failed to materialise, London's Middlesex Guildhall crown court was told.
Outside court, Detective Chief Superintendent Nigel Mawer, head of Scotland Yard's specialist economic crime unit, said: "The message we are trying to get over to the public is, do not send money by money transfer to a person whose identity you do not know personally."

He said the £300,000 in this case was "but a drop in the ocean" against the estimated £1bn a year conned from people who wired funds in this way, adding: "eBay scams are a substantial part of that."

Detectives believe there may be thousands more victims in the case who have not come forward. Derek Zeitlin, prosecuting, said: "There are approximately 3,000 victims worldwide, with 60% in the US. The rest are in Europe, Africa, this country and other countries including Spain, Germany, Canada, Honduras, Korea, Italy and Peru. This fraud is continuing to this day."

The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Constable Andrew Bonafont, said: "This was a well-planned and sophisticated fraud involving the use of multiple bogus identities and modern telecommunications technology. It is on the biggest scale I have ever come across and conned thousands of victims."

The Cretanus, from east London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obtain property by deception and money laundering earlier this year. Their accomplice, George Titar, 26, was found to be using three false passports. He was also sentenced to 30 months. They were caught after officials from Western Union informed police.

All three have been served with deportation notices. The Cretanus used 12 aliases to obtain the money and Titar would visit Western Union's east London office to collect payments. Much of the money was sent back to Romania.

A spokesman for eBay said the company was extremely sorry that anyone had suffered through their association with the website. "These transactions did not take place on eBay and as soon as we were made aware of them we took action. By working with the police we helped ensure that the prosecutions were successful, showing that crime does not pay on eBay," it said.

"Payments were made using Western Union money transfers, which both eBay and Western Union strongly recommend against. In fact, eBay.com in the US has banned payment via Western Union and eBay.co.uk will soon be following suit." The case highlights how vulnerable those bidding for goods over the internet are to fraud and illegal sales. Over the past few weeks, interested parties could have tried to buy flu vaccines, or sunglasses the seller says belonged to Saddam Hussein.

The digital equivalent of a car boot sale, eBay lets sellers place unmoderated advertisements, although a team of investigators looks into contentious cases. The company, which celebrated its 10th birthday this year, made $759m (£427m) profit last year, during which goods worth more than £2bn were sold through its UK website alone.

While Rawhide gallops off to the Gila River Indian Community, next stop for its most famous sculpture will be determined by eBay.

Sculptor Snell Johnson's Come and Get It sculpture, which has greeted Rawhide visitors for years, went up for sale on eBay Wednesday. The auction closes next Friday.

The sculpture is a double life-size group of five pieces including two cowboys, two horses and a cowboy cook, plus kettles. advertisement 
 
The artwork, recently appraised at $1.5 million, depicts the cowboys reining their horses to a quick stop while jumping off.

The sculpture is owned by former Rawhide owner Jerry Hirsh.

Dave Lakhani, publicist for Hirsh's Jaren Corporation, said he hopes the sculpture will raise more than $1 million for charity.

"All the proceeds will be donated to the Lodestar Foundation," Lakhani said.

The Phoenix foundation, headed by Hirsh, promotes philanthropy, volunteerism and coordination among other non-profits.

Johnson passed away in 2001, but his larger than life sculptures live on. He also created the Horse World sculpture at the entrance of WestWorld of Scottsdale and the MGN Grand Lion in Las Vegas.

Paul Harvey, Mike Tyson and former President Ronald Reagan are among the celebrities who have owned Western works created by Johnson.

Starting minimum bid for Come and Get It is $750,000.

To see it, go to eBay.com and type "Snell Johnson" in the search field.

Beginning Nov. 19, another eBay auction will feature thousands of Western antiques that have been displayed at Rawhide.

A teenage conman who swindled eBay customers out of thousands of pounds now wants to advise the internet auction site on tackling criminals, it emerged today.

Phillip Shortman, 18, of Pontypool, south Wales, was sentenced to 12 months’ detention in May this year after duping customers out of £45,000, but he now claims to have “turned over a new leaf“.

Phillip Shortman’s crimes funded a lavish lifestyle including holidays to more than 20 countries and champagne-fuelled rides in limousine.

But in an interview to be broadcast on the Tonight with Trevor McDonald programme, the married father-of-one claims to have ended his criminal career - and says his new ambition is to turn from poacher to gamekeeper by offering his services to eBay as an advisor on security.

Shortman tells Tonight: “Fingers crossed, that somebody like maybe Microsoft or eBay or somebody big out there will get in touch with me. I’ve (turned over) a new leaf and I want to just prove myself and I want to show my community I’m changed, that it’s not about the money any more.

He adds: “I’d do it definitely. It’s easy, I can tell if an auction is a scam, it’s just everything about it, I can see a scam from miles away.”

Shortman claims in the programme that it was easy to carry out his fraud, and criticises security on the eBay site.

The programme lifts the lid on how he operated his scam from his bedroom at his parents’ house when he was 17, evading capture over 13 months, despite asking his victims to pay funds into a bank account held in his name or send cheques to his home address.

Shortman was eventually convicted, but while on bail awaiting sentence he re-offended by conning eBay customers into paying £8,000 for tickets to the Welsh international rugby team’s Grand Slam decider match.

Following his release on licence after serving an initial custodial term, Shortman was arrested and convicted for this crime, for which he is awaiting sentence.

Shortman tells Tonight how he avoided being tagged with a bad reputation by constantly opening new accounts and genuinely buying or selling low-priced goods in order to generate positive feedback before re-starting his scam.

He claims that he is now sorry for his crimes, saying: “I do apologise to them and deep down I am sorry for doing it and if I could I would pay them back, definitely.”

In response, eBay’s head of safety and security Gareth Griffiths tells the programme that he is keen to met Shortman to discuss a possible role.

Mr Griffiths says that he is even willing to visit the teenager in prison to talk about his offer, should he be given a custodial sentence at his forthcoming hearing.

After being told of the teenager’s new career plans, Mr Griffiths says: “I’d love to have a chat with Phillip Shortman. Let’s talk about it, very happy to have a chat.”

Detective Constable Steve Thomas, who dealt with Shortman’s case, tells the programme that eBay lacked co-operation during the investigation, but that the police’s relationship with the auction site had now improved.

On the issue of security, Mr Griffiths adds: “I’d say as soon as we were aware we clamped down. We rely to some extent on the people who are being defrauded to leave feedback to let us know, to contact law enforcement so that we can then react and as soon as all of that happened we reacted.

“I don’t know exactly what the channels were the police were trying to use. We don’t ignore this kind of information. We work again very closely and pro actively with the police.

He adds: “We’ve come a long way since (the Shortman case). One thing to remember about Phillip Shortman, he was arrested and convicted. This is someone who has actually highlighted the transparency of our website and highlighted the negative effect of bad behaviour on our site.

“When we are approached by law enforcement or, well, basically, law enforcement bodies and prosecuting authority, we sit up and listen. Number one we have to, number two it’s in our best interests and our community’s best interest to do that.”

A bidding war is brewing after a cup of the nation's favourite drink was offered for sale on the internet.

Even Billy Gibbons of Audlem near Nantwich in Cheshire thought it was a crazy idea to offer a `Nice Cup of Tea' to the highest bidder on eBay.

But he has already had offers from 11 tea buffs, willing to pay up to £11.50 for his special brew.

Billy, who came up with the idea when he was getting together a number of articles to sell on the internet in his 1950s style kitchen, said: "I was drinking tea I'd brewed and I thought what a nice cup of tea and wondered if anyone else would like to share it with me.

"It seemed a crazy idea but I've been astonished at the response. So far I've had more than 30 questions from people about it and 11 bids.

"Obviously the original tea I made in a mug has gone off a bit and if someone really wants to buy it I will have to make a fresh brew.

"Whatever happens to the tea it has been a wonderful experience, being in touch with so many people. One man said he had come out of hospital after an operation on his foot and being in touch with me had given him the best laugh for ages."

Billy, aged 49, was shown how to make tea - with freshly boiled water and a warmed tea pot - by his Newton Heath-born mother Alice. She was a professional dancer at the Palace Theatre, Manchester.

And now Billy, who used to have a moon rocket tail-fin poking from his cottage roof, admits that delivering the eBay brew is proving something of a headache.

"I am thinking of all kinds of ways," said Billy.

"One idea is to put it in a flask and send it by courier but, by the time it arrives, it might not be as nice as it was.

"I will be sending the mug or a cup with it, so possibly someone might be just as satisfied with my mum's recipe for a nice cup of tea."

Billy is donating the proceeds from the internet cuppa to Christie Hospital in Manchester for cancer research or People's Dispensary for Sick Animals.

Teen actress Lindsay Lohan got furious when she found out somebody is selling on the eBay a headlight from her Mercedes she had an accident with a couple of weeks ago.

Lohan, 19, and two other people were taken to hospital, after the teen actress' black Mercedes-Benz convertible had collided with a van in West Hollywood, according to Associated Press.

The "Herbie Fully Loaded" star and her passengers were treated for minor injuries, while the van driver suffered "moderate" injuries. According to investigators, the one to blame for the accident was the van driver, who made a U-turn on the boulevard, right in front of the actress's car.

The sporty car was taken to a nearby garage to be repaired and it seems somebody has barrowed some car accessories to sell them on the Internet.

The listing wrote: “I was really waiting to get this in my hands (Friend of my works at the place where the car was taken)... Today is your lucky day. This is one of a kind item. I will never put anything like it. This is the only thing I got… You are bidding on the passenger side headlight of Lindsay black Mercedes”.

In a move that could put Google in competition with eBay, the search giant is testing a new service that would allow people to post and make searchable any type of content, a Google spokeswoman confirmed on Tuesday.

A screenshot of a page for "Google Base" gives as examples of items that can be posted to Google's server: "description of your party planning service", "articles on current events from your website", "listing of your used car for sale" and "database of protein structures".

A Google spokeswoman wrote in an email: "This is an early stage test of a product that enables content owners to easily send their content to Google. Like our web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps program, we are working to provide content owners an easy way to give us access to their content. We're continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings but we don't have anything to announce at this time."

Other screenshots show sample pages, including an entry for a Thai Glazed Chicken Lettuce Wrap recipe. One page includes policies including "posting is not permitted for the promotion of body parts or human remains" and terms of service that give Google the right to "reproduce, modify, adapt, publish and otherwise use, with or without attribution" the content on the site for promotional purposes. It also says the Google Base interface is currently available only in English and German.

Some bloggers speculated that Google Base was the precursor to an ecommerce site that would go up against online auction company eBay.

A blogger called "Dirson" wrote on New Google Blog: "Google's just launched 'Google Base', a service to insert and share all types of content: events, housing, jobs, products, second-hand vehicles.

"The information will be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local. We expect that 'Google Purchases' - the new micropayments service among users - will be also introduced as a complement to 'Google Base'."

Philipp Lenssen wrote on his Google Blogoscoped blog: "This sounds big and immensely interesting. Is Google putting a layer in between dynamic websites and their databases, replacing MySQL/PostgreSQL/MS SQL, and creating a new GoogleSQL... possibly, with their ads in it? I can't wait to try it."

A reader identified as "Lone Deranger", who posted to a Dutch blog called Seweso, predicted Google Base would be a "death knell" for both eBay and Microsoft: "There is much more to this than an "ebay/craigslist" killer. This is the first part of Google putting ALL YOUR INFORMATION online that you currently have lying around on your desktop.

"Before there was no way of doing this other than creating a website which most people are too lazy to do. Oh, and guess what, once you have your documents uploaded on Googlebase, in a few months they'll rollout Google Office and you'll be able to edit them right there!"

Also on Tuesday, Google began hosting a three-day off-the-record confab called Zeitgeist '05: The Google Partner Forum, with 400 invitees, including prominent members of the mainstream media.

EBay Inc. (EBAY) appears set to face head-to-head competition in an important part of its business from Internet giant Google Inc. (GOOG), as the competitive landscape for traditional Internet service providers gets more intense.

Google confirmed Tuesday it is testing an online-classified service similar to Craigslist.com. Screenshots of in-development Web pages that are circulating on the Internet for the service show that Web users will be able to share information about a variety of items, including events, housing and product sales.

Google's potential classifieds service could hurt eBay's fixed-price business, which complements the core online auction business and accounts for nearly a third of eBay's total merchandise volume. The new service would also appear to be in direct competition with Craigslist, in which eBay owns a 25% stake.

Hoefer & Arnett Inc. analyst Martin Pyykkonen said that the news is "clearly a positive for (Google) and a negative for eBay." Some traditional eBay sellers might end up putting half their items on Google to see which platform works best, Pyykkonen said, noting that it could result in eBay losing a "notable percentage" of its fixed-price revenue.

Pacific Growth Equities analyst Derek Brown said one reason he has maintained his sell rating on eBay is because of changes in the competitive landscape. The likes of eBay, Craigslist, newspapers and others have tools that individuals can use to advertise items for sale, and Google could become another option for people, he said.

Concerned investors sent eBay's stock into the red on Tuesday. Shares were recently trading at $37.77, down $1.65 or 4.2% on heavy volume.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy couldn't be immediately reached for comment when Google confirmed that it was testing the new service.

EBay's fixed-price option, called "Buy It Now," allows buyers to purchase an item at a set price instead of bidding against other people for it. The business segment contributed about $3.4 billion of the $10.8 billion in total gross merchandise volume registered during the third quarter. Gross merchandise volume is the total value of all successfully closed items on eBay's trading platforms.

EBay took its 25% stake in Craigslist in August 2004. At the time there was speculation that eBay might purchase a larger holding in the company or perhaps buy the remainder of Craigslist. Individuals can post items on Craigslist for free, but there are fees for job postings in New York, Los Angeles and the San Francisco area.

It's difficult to pinpoint Craigslist's impact on eBay's overall performance because eBay doesn't break out Craigslist in its reports.

In February, eBay launched its Kijiji brand of online classified Web sites in several international markets, including cities in France, Germany, China, Italy, Japan, Canada and Austria. Individuals can list and find items on Kijiji for free.

Google will support its new service, called "Google Base," with keyword-based advertising. Whether the company will charge fees for the classifieds service is unknown, as is when the service will be available.

"If Google, is going in this direction, (Google) could justify an upfront listing fee or a percentage of the final sale, and I think they could get it given their popularity," Pyykkonen said.

Pyykkonen doesn't own shares of eBay or Google, and the firm doesn't do investment banking work for them.

Pacific Growth Equities analyst Brown owns shares of Google but not eBay. The firm makes a market in both stocks. It doesn't do investment banking for either company.

-By Desiree J. Hanford, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4135; desiree.hanford@dowjones.com

Odds, ends and celebrity items from the recently released movie Elizabethtown are flooding the online auction site EBay.

More than 300 items related to the movie were up for auction late last week, including pieces of original wardrobe worn by the cast, at more than $200 each, and an outfit worn by Kirsten Dunst priced at $352 with bidding still going on.

The price for pieces of movie memorabilia often is set by what the buyer is willing to pay.

BBDO developed the campaign, which Agency.com is helping to execute and measure over the Internet. BBDO secured the eBay account in March, immediately following eBay's decision to end its six-year relationship with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. BBDO's new initiative attempts to show consumers that whatever they wish for--be it old or new, hot or not, rare or spare--they can find "it" on eBay.

The company's last effort, developed by Goodby and called "The power of us all," focused on the community trust aspect of eBay's network. Before that came Goodby's theatrically informed "Do it eBay." Whatis-it.com incorporates a section where users may customize their own "it" by material and size, and then print or send it to a friend. There are a series of original and high-quality productions produced by BBDO, which further document the story of "it," and its travels on the world media circuit from Mexico to Tokyo. A search bar brings users to eBay.com.

Another ad will debut at some point this week, then another in mid-November, said McSpadden. The whatis-it.com destination site will also be promoted with rich media banner advertising across the Web, a takeover of several Yahoo! sites, and extensive natural and paid search marketing. "The teasers were meant to do just that, and they're just the tip of the iceberg," said McSpadden. Print ads are running in Rolling Stone, People, Entertainment Weekly, and Time, among others.

The new draft translation of the Order of the Mass, compiled by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), has recently been auctioned off the eBay Internet auction site.

catholicireland.net reports that the 44-page document sold for $A81.26.

The eBay seller, who asked not to be identified, said that he planned to auction off another copy of the text "not to make money, but to put the text out there and show people the sillier bits."

"These are the words of the holy sacrifice of the Mass and they belong to us," he told Catholic News Service in Rome, adding that the process should not be secret.

The Order of the Mass includes the prayers that are used at every Mass, such as the Gloria, the Nicene Creed and the eucharistic prayers, excluding prayers that change each week during the liturgical year.

An earlier draft had been approved by ICEL's episcopal board in 2004 and was distributed to English-speaking bishops for comment.

Following new translation rules outlined in the 2001 Vatican instruction "Liturgiam Authenticam" ("The Authentic Liturgy"), the draft used more literal translations of the Latin texts than the English texts currently recited at Mass, along with a more formal version of English.

In 2002, John Page, former executive secretary of the ICEL, resigned from his post, sharply criticising new procedures for liturgical translations, saying that the Vatican had endorsed "a more secretive process and definitely a process that seems to be less open to the wider Church."

After the release of the 2004 draft, Mr Page said that the language of the new translation "is a form of English, but it's not a form of English that's living."

Some of the translations that bishops had judged as archaic or artificial sounding have been changed since the 2004 draft was circulated.

Marcia Cooper and Harvey Levine hoped for a blissful retirement, until they both were laid off from their jobs. They hadn't planned to quit working so soon and hadn't saved enough. Feeling unprepared to compete with 20-year-olds in the traditional job market, the 60-something New Jersey couple turned to eBay Inc.

Cooper and Levine started small, standing in line to buy concert tickets for acts such as Phish and Bruce Springsteen and then reselling the tickets for a profit on eBay, the global Internet auction site. From there, they moved to selling wine glasses, antiques and more valuable items such as baseball memorabilia.

Those endeavors turned into a business the couple named General Enterprises. The average monthly sales this year: more than $10,000.

"It's been a boon to us," Cooper said of the business they started back in 2000. "We didn't expect it to grow quite as fast, because at our stage in life it's very, very difficult for somebody to enjoy what they're doing and make money at it."

Many people age 55 and older are turning to the online marketplace. For some retirees, eBay has become a financial lifeline, supplementing pension plans or savings that may not be sufficient. Others have uncovered a latent entrepreneurial streak in themselves or simply see eBay as a creative outlet.

"I spent the first 30 years of my life in corporate America, and I wish I had started my own business the first day I got out of school," said Joe Marcinkowski, 64, who began an eBay business five years ago. "It's never too late to start."

An internal eBay study completed in the first quarter found that more than 22 percent of eBay users in the U.S. are 55 or older.

Cooper, now 70, said retirement arrived sooner than expected. The former marketing executive left her job as part of a corporate downsizing. Her fiance, Levine, now 66, an operations manager at a fine-art paper company, was also laid off. Cooper's son, Rob, who had paid his mother to buy him some concert tickets, suggested she buy more tickets to sell on eBay.

He guided the couple through the entire process, telling them exactly which tickets to buy and coaching them through the process of posting their offerings on eBay's Web site. At the end of their first week, Cooper and Levine had $1,000 in profit.

The couple were hooked. They started emptying their closets and trolling flea markets to unearth treasures to sell. Starting a business after age 55 was easier than it might have been in her 20s, Cooper said, because she didn't have to worry about a family or saving for a house. EBay made it easy, too, she said; the only capitalization their business required was the cost of a computer.

The couple, who live in Fort Lee, N.J., soon turned to selling things such as collectible cars for other people, whom they charged a commission. One problem: They initially got carried away, saddling themselves with inexpensive flea-market finds that didn't generate large enough commissions to justify the time required to market and sell them.

"We said, 'Whoa, this isn't the way to run a business'†", Cooper said. "Now we're a lot more discriminating." (Each item sold must now generate a minimum commission of $100.)

The pair also started training, for a fee, other would-be eBay sellers in how to navigate the auction site. They haven't replaced the incomes they earned from their full-time jobs, but they cite the freedom in operating their business from anywhere and the flexibility in scheduling their days as two benefits of an Internet business.

Joe and Laura Marcinkowski started selling furniture on eBay after a fire destroyed all their belongings in 1998. The Nassau Bay, Texas, couple, who had lived overseas for 26 years when Marcinkowski worked for several oil companies, started buying furniture to replace an eclectic collection lost in the blaze. When their new house was ready, they had more furniture than they could use.

Marcinkowski immediately considered selling them on eBay. Those pieces generated a profit, prompting him to consider a business. In 2000, the couple formed Metro Retro Furniture to sell vintage 1940s and 1950s furniture and new reproductions. Laura Marcinkowski managed the accounting, while Joe Marcinkowski did the other tasks.

The company immediately generated strong monthly sales on eBay, shipping containers of furniture to Prague and Tokyo. The pair had tapped into a global market of designers and architects interested in vintage furniture from designers such as American office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller.

"When I realized I had to sell this, and I had this very niche product, I couldn't get to my market in any other way but eBay," Joe Marcinkowski said. "Nothing else would've worked."

The couple acquired a 30,000-square-foot warehouse in September 2002. They also opened a Houston retail store in January 2004.

Operating a business dependent on eBay hasn't been without its drawbacks. The San Jose, Calif., company has raised some fees for sellers, such as auction listings and store subscriptions, every year for the past five years. This year the monthly fee for an eBay store subscription rose 60 percent to $15.95, which affects store owners like the Marcinkowskis.

Joe Marcinkowski said he has run into problems using the company's PayPal electronic-payment service for transactions involving buyers outside the U.S. When he calls PayPal for help, "it's sometimes very hard to get the right person" who can resolve his problem, he said. A PayPal spokeswoman said that some transactions are delayed when the company tries to protect its customers against potential fraud, but that it tries to resolve matters in a timely manner.

Metro Retro generated 2004 sales of $900,000 and expects to generate sales of about $1.5 million this year. Most of those sales are online. The company employs 15 people, freeing the couple to focus on sales and learning about the furniture the company acquires through liquidation sales.

Some retirees find an eBay business gives them another hobby to fill their days.

Mark Goldberg, 58, is one such person. When he retired in December 1999 from running a rare-coin company, he spent much of his time golfing. Four months later, he found himself drawn back to his hobby of coin collecting through eBay, where he started trading coins with people as far away as Croatia and China. By the end of May 2000, he had sold everything he had owned in terms of coins and collectibles. He said he was "bitten with the craze" and began buying more merchandise to sell.

"It's a lot of enjoyment for me," said Goldberg, who lives in Marina del Rey, Calif.

eBay has just launched another TV and print ad campaign, which you can view at a dedicated site, whatis-it.com. Once again, I just don't get it. The ads show the creation of and subsequent craze over "it," which is literally the letters "i" and "t" in eBay colors and font. Only at the end of the ad does the point come: "Whatever it is, you can get it on eBay."

Maybe these ads will go over better than the last few campaigns, none of which even eBay folks now believe were as effective as they'd have hoped. I kinda liked the message of the last one, "The Power of All of Us," but those ads apparently didn't grab the public. The campaign before that had regular folks singing and dancing, and I think the one before that involved a dog burying some toy in a yard.

The thing is, everyone already knows eBay as a brand is kinda cute, even lovable. No need to keep harping on that. In fact, it may be something of a minor liability by now, because the big missing link for eBay in an increasingly competitive online marketplace is that many people don't realize you can get a whole lot more than collectible figurines, old baseball cards, and the like on eBay. Why wait until the very end of the ad to make that point?

If the current ads were uproariously funny, you could forgive waiting for the real message. But to my eye, they're more perplexing than anything else. One ad even has a vaguely creepy pitchman talking about how "it" can hold more than 2,500 songs and cook meat. So regardless of what you think the ad is leading toward, you kind of assume it's a product, not an idea. If the point eBay wants to make--as CEO Meg Whitman noted at the recent earnings conference call--is that people should shop first at eBay to find anything they want, why not just say so? Spend those precious 30 seconds or so showing all the things you can actually get, from brand-new Manolos to the latest iPod.

Ads, of course, are a mysterious art, so who knows? Maybe these will do their job. I don't think so, but I don't have decades of marketing experience like eBay's execs do. So what do you think? Maybe you love the ads, maybe you hate them, maybe you're not sure. Whatever, let me know in Comments, below.

Here's your chance.

Several governors are participating in charity auctions on eBay to benefit the YWCA's Week Without Violence program that began Oct. 16. The 10-day auctions run through Oct. 26.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is offering a private lunch with him and first lady Gayle Manchin at the Gov.'s Mansion. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch will have coffee with a winning bidder at his office.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley donated a pair of new cuff links bearing that state's seal and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius gave a ceramic tile with her state's seal on it. Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner donated "Delaware," a book of photos by photographer Kevin Fleming showcasing that state. The book is signed by Fleming and Minner.

Manchin's donation is advertised on the Internet auction site as a "perfect gift for a relative or friend in West Virginia. 'Surprise -- you are having lunch with the Gov.!".

With voice communication moving to the internet, phone calls will become free within four to six years, eBay chief executive Meg Whitman predicted during a conference call about the company's latest financial quarter.

Whitman made her remarks in response to a comment questioning the reasoning of eBay's €2.1bn acquisition of VoIP provider Skype, which the company closed last week.

"The price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the net will come down to zero," said Whitman.

"The ultimate monetisation method of voice communications on the net changes from revenue per minute to being based on the size of the ecosystem."

That 'ecosystem' is a combination of users and developers who use the Skype platform and are attracted to it because of the quality of the service and the size of its user base.

EBay plans to make money by selling premium services, and by bundling Skype with its existing services.

In the future users will be able to pay for Skype services directly out of their PayPal accounts, for instance. They currently have to make separate payments.

EBay also said that it plans to introduce a service targeted at estate agents, car dealers and the services industry. The service would allow them to receive telephone calls from prospective customers, for which eBay would charge a per call fee.

Skype announced that it will generate about $60m in revenues this year, expected to grow to more than $200m in 2006.

The company currently makes money by handling telephone calls to regular phone numbers, and by selling premium services including voice mail and custom ring-tones.

Online auction pioneer eBay Inc reported a 40 percent surge in third quarter income, but warned of a reduced profit in the current quarter as it pays for recent acquisitions. Company shares fell 5.7 percent in late trading on Wednesday.

For the fourth quarter, eBay said it now expects earnings of US$0.21 a share -- US$0.01 below the current Wall Street estimate -- on revenue of US$1.25 billion to US$1.29 billion, reflecting the impact of its acquisition of Internet phone provider Skype Technologies SA and the pending US$370 million purchase of an online payment business from Internet services company VeriSign Inc.

In the third-quarter, San Jose-based eBay said it earned US$255 million, or US$0.18 per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with US$182.3 million, or US$0.13 per share from the year-ago period.

If not for one-time items, eBay said it would have earned US$280.2 million, or US$0.20 per share, matching analysts earnings-per-share expectations, according to Thomson Financial.

Revenue for the period totaled US$1.106 billion, a 37 percent increase from last year's US$805.9 million. Analysts were expecting revenue of US$1.08 billion, according to Thomson.

The Internet bellwether released the results after the stock market closed on Wednesday.

The company's shares rose US$1.59 to close at US$42.01 on the NASDAQ Stock Market, and fell US$2.39, or 5.7 percent, in extended trading.

For the full year, the company said it expects revenues to be between US$4.47 billion to US$4.51 billion, compared to analysts' forecasts of US$4.43 billion.

Ebay, the leading e-commerce player, has been battling skepticism about its acquisition of Skype Technologies. Many analysts have questioned both the price tag -- at least US$2.6 billion -- and the companies' compatibility.

Ebay said on Wednesday that chief financial officer Rajiv Dutta will become Skype's president, after his successor is named. Dutta will remain a member of eBay's executive team, the company said.

In a conference call with anal-ysts, eBay CEO Meg Whitman defended the Skype purchase, saying the merger will help eBay expand its existing services and reach more users.

For one, Skype users will be able to pay their bills automatically via PayPal, eBay's online payment business, Whitman said.

Privately held Skype -- founded by the creators of Kazaa, the file-sharing program that riled the music business -- gives away software that lets people talk for free over the Internet using computers and microphones. A paid version, SkypeOut, allows those calls to be connected to regular phones.

In a phone interview, Dutta refused to elaborate on new services that would come from the merger.

"But certainly, Skype is an opportunity that is truly transformational for eBay, much as PayPal was a few years ago," he said.

Ebay said it had more than 168 million registered users by the end of the third quarter, a jump of 35 percent from last year.

The two leading Chinese Internet auction sites escalated a bitter war of words on Wednesday by arguing the superiority of their respective strategies for conducting online auctions.

Taobao.com, the Alibaba auction site backed by Softbank Corp. of Japan, and in which Yahoo Inc. recently purchased a 40 percent stake, sparked the battle by saying its site would be free of charge for three more years.

"We call on eBay to do what's right for this phase of China's e-commerce development and make your services free for buyers and sellers in China," Jack Ma, chief executive of Alibaba.com, said in a statement.

It was a clear shot across the bow of rival eBay, which acquired China's largest online auction site, EachNet, in 2003. To maximize the impact, Taobao's announcement was issued one hour ahead before eBay printed its quarterly financial report.

"'Free' is not a business model," eBay fired back in its own statement. "It speaks volumes about the strength of eBay's business in China that Taobao today announced that it is unable to charge for its products for the next three years."

EBay, the decade-old online auction giant that now counts 168 million users worldwide, has the philosophy that completely free is unhealthy. Paying something ensures that a marketplace won't become a dumping ground for unwanted goods, it argues.

"It is not good for a buyer or a seller because it clutters the marketplace," eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said, noting that sellers may list 20 of the same, unpopular item when price is no object. "Some amount of pricing ensures a higher quality supply," he said.

FREE FOR THREE YEARS

Alibaba.com said its Taobao Chinese-language consumer auction site will remain free for buyers and sellers for three more years, until at least October 2008.

It also plans to invest $120 million to expand Taobao's marketplace and declared that its ambition was to create 1 million jobs in China for entrepreneurs selling goods on the Taobao site.

"Cutting prices is not enough -- it's time to make your services free and affordable for all of China's entrepreneurs and consumers," Ma declared. "Free is the right business model for China's current conditions."

Taobao was started in 2003. The company said it counted 10 million registered users at the end of September and that it is growing at a rate of 1 million new users per month.

Gross market volume for the third quarter grew to $289 million with 10.79 million items posted for sale, Taobao said.

"They can say whatever they want about their gross market volume," eBay's Durzy said in response to Taobao's statistics, which he said were unaudited according to the strict standards required by U.S. listed companies like eBay.

"They (Taobao) can't say anything about revenue because they intend to remain free for three years," Durzy said.

EBay Chairman and Chief Executive Meg Whitman said eBay China added 2 million users during the third quarter for a total of 15.1 million users.

In April, the last time the company disclosed its gross merchandise volume, eBay said its China business amounted to about $100 million and 11.6 million registered users. These numbers were scrubbed for fraud and duplications, making them difficult to compare with rivals, eBay said.

"Some of our competitors have twisted our metrics in the local marketplace. We don't give those numbers out any more for competitive reasons," Durzy said.

The chairman of News Corporation has posted an advert on the site setting a starting price of $25,000.

The winning bidder will be treated to lunch with four friends at the company's New York headquarters.

Mr Murdoch has long-established links with the Israeli hi-tech industry, the UK's Guardian newspaper reports.

Marcia Cooper and Harvey Levine hoped for a blissful retirement, until they were laid off from their jobs. They hadn't planned to quit working so soon and hadn't saved enough. Feeling unprepared to compete with 20-year-olds in the traditional job market, the 60-something New Jersey couple turned to eBay Inc.

Cooper and Levine started small, standing in line to buy concert tickets for acts such as Phish and Bruce Springsteen and then reselling the tickets for a profit on eBay, the global Internet auction site. From there, they moved to selling wine glasses, antiques and more valuable items such as baseball memorabilia. Those endeavors turned into a business the couple named General Enterprises. The average monthly sales this year: more than $10,000.

"It's been a boon to us," Cooper says of the business they started back in 2000. "We didn't expect it to grow quite as fast, because at our stage in life it's very, very difficult for somebody to enjoy what they're doing and make money at it."

Many people age 55 and older are turning to the online marketplace. For some retirees, eBay has become a kind of financial lifeline, supplementing pension plans or savings that may not be sufficient. Others have uncovered a latent entrepreneurial streak in themselves or simply see eBay as a creative outlet; they enjoy the sales process and the interaction an eBay business gives them with people around the world.

"I spent the first 30 years of my life in corporate America, and I wish I had started my own business the first day I got out of school," says Joe Marcinkowski, 64, who began an eBay business five years ago. "It's never too late to start."

An internal eBay study completed in the first quarter found that more than 22 percent of eBay users in the U.S. are 55 or older. More than 250,000 eBay sellers in the U.S. say they retired early to sell on eBay, according to an AC Nielsen survey. (EBay says it has "millions" of sellers in the U.S. but declines to disclose more specific figures.)

Cooper, now 70, says retirement arrived sooner than expected. The former marketing executive left her job at a medical-supplies company in 1999 as part of a corporate downsizing. Her fiance, Levine, now 66, an operations manager at a fine art paper company, also was laid off from his job. Cooper's son, Rob, suggested selling on eBay to generate income.

Cooper, though familiar with the Internet, had never bought anything on eBay; Levine had purchased a few things like casino chips there. Cooper's son, who had paid his mother to buy him some concert tickets, suggested she buy more tickets to sell on eBay. He guided the couple through the process, telling them exactly which concert tickets to buy and coaching them through the process of posting their offerings on eBay's Web site. At the end of their first week, Cooper and Levine had $1,000 in profit.

The couple were hooked. They started emptying their closets and trolling flea markets to unearth treasures to sell. Starting a business after age 55 was easier than it might have been in her 20s, Cooper says, because she didn't have to worry about a family or saving for a house. EBay made it easy, too, she says; the only capitalization their business required was the cost of a computer.

The couple, who live in Fort Lee, N.J., soon turned to selling things such as collectible cars for other people, whom they charged a commission. One problem: They initially got carried away, saddling themselves with inexpensive flea-market finds that didn't generate large enough commissions to justify the time required to market and sell them.

"We said, 'Whoa, this isn't the way to run a business,'" Cooper says. "Now we're a lot more discriminating."

The pair also started training, for a fee, other would-be eBay sellers in how to navigate the auction site. They haven't replaced the incomes they earned from their full-time jobs, but they cite the freedom in operating their business from anywhere and the flexibility in scheduling their days as two benefits of an Internet business.

Joe and Laura Marcinkowski started selling furniture on eBay after a fire destroyed all their belongings in 1998. The Nassau Bay, Texas, couple, who had lived overseas for 26 years when Joe Marcinkowski worked for several oil companies, started buying furniture to replace an eclectic collection lost in the blaze. When their new house was ready, they had more furniture than they could use.

Joe Marcinkowski had bought furniture and a car on eBay after discovering the site in 1997. When he wanted to sell the excess furniture, he immediately considered eBay. Those pieces generated a profit, prompting him to consider a business. In 2000, the couple formed Metro Retro Furniture to sell vintage 1940s and 1950s furniture and new reproductions. Laura Marcinkowski managed the accounting, while Joe Marcinkowski handled other tasks.

In the beginning, the work proved difficult and physically challenging. The pair scoured estate sales and auctions to find valuable collectibles. Joe Marcinkowski hauled the furniture himself for refinishing and reupholstering.

The company immediately generated strong monthly sales on eBay, shipping containers of furniture to Prague and Tokyo. The pair had tapped into a global market of designers and architects interested in vintage furniture from designers such as American office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller. After a year and a half of using their garage and public storage space for their inventory, the couple acquired a 30,000-square-foot warehouse in September 2002. They also opened a Houston retail store in January 2004.

Metro Retro generated 2004 sales of $900,000 and expects to generate sales of about $1.5 million this year, Joe Marcinkowski says. Most of those sales are online.

Some retirees find an eBay business gives them another hobby to fill their days. Mark Goldberg, 58, is one such person. When he retired in December 1999 from running a rare-coin company, he spent much of his time golfing. Four months later, he found himself drawn back to his hobby of coin collecting through eBay, where he started trading coins with people as far away as Croatia and China. By the end of May 2000, he had sold everything he had owned in terms of coins and collectibles. He says he was "bitten with the craze" and began buying more merchandise to sell.

"It's a lot of enjoyment for me," says Goldberg, who lives in Marina del Rey, Calif. "If you said, 'Do you want to play golf tomorrow or do you want to load images on eBay?' I'd rather load the images."

THE UK's famous Priory rehab clinic is treating patients addicted to auction website eBay.

"Just as people become alcoholics, there is a percentage of people who are predisposed to becoming dependent, even to something like eBay," addiction expert David Nott said.
"Many are recovering drug or alcohol addicts looking for another way to get their high."

'Dago Red' Could Be Yours For Only $950K... Make That $950,050... No, $950,100...
by ANN Associate Editor Rob Finfrock
The crew at Aero-News was both shocked, humored, and somewhat awed to find a true piece of air racing history for sale this week... on eBay. We're also now searching for any spare change we can find, calling our rich uncles to ask "just how they're doing", and hitting the boss up for rather substantial raises (E-I-C Note: Ah, no.)

"Dago Red", a legend among pilots and crowds alike at the Reno Air Races, is for sale. And it's for sale on -- it bears repeating -- eBay, the online auction site better known for potential low, low prices for household items, cars, jewelry, clothes, books, and Britney Spears' old bras... pretty much everything except an airplane (although there are actually plenty of those for sale on the site, too.)

But what about an airplane that features a "4000+" horsepower engine, is the current 5-time consecutive National Unlimited Class Champion, and has posted a still-unbroken record speed of 517.06 mph in the 15km category? It's no joke: the heavily-modified P-51 Mustang, built in 1982 from the wreckage of a plane originally manufactured in 1944 and is today almost unrecognizable from the original, is being sold on the online site.

And, at the current bid of $950,100, it still hasn't met the unlisted reserve price.

A little steep, perhaps -- but to be fair, the price not only includes one hot mamma-jamma of an airplane, but also the accessories necessary in keeping such an aircraft in the air, including: a 48' support trailer, two engines, a 29' RV, tug, two engine stands, and "miscellaneous parts, equipment, and supplies."

Considering that prices of authentic P-51s still hover north of $1 million -- when you can find one for sale -- this is probably an amazing deal.

While we search for wealthy benefactors, you can check out the auction for yourself at the link below. But remember, this is a serious auction, and eBay has gone after people in the past who have artificially inflated auction prices. This is no joke, so conduct yourself accordingly. Bidding is set to end on October 20 at 9am PDT.

If you can afford it, and want a unique (and very, very, VERY fast) piece of history, have at it. All we ask of Dago Red's eventual new owner is that you please remember your friends at Aero-News. In the meantime, we'll be bidding on the R/C powered "DAGO RED" model also for sale on the site, engine and radio not included, currently showing a price of $6.49. We can almost swing that...

The London Metropolitan Police have announced that they will be working with money transfer giant Western Union in order to stop fraudsters from using that service for nefarious purposes. This means that all Western Union customers will be required to sign a form stating that they are confident that they are not being defrauded.

The Met have also entered into a similar agreement with online auction company eBay Inc. "There are businesses that fear their reputation will be damaged through the publicity that the police are involved and that will have a negative impact on their share price," said Detective Chief Superintendent Nigel Mawer, head of economic and specialist crime at the Metropolitan police. He added that all they would do is ensure that the banks as well as the customers are not taken for a ride.
 
It is estimated that such frauds cost the public something in the tune of £1 billion a year. US-based Western Union will also cooperate with the police in spreading awareness about the dangers of fraud. Peter Bucher, Western Union's Financial Services vice-president for operations said that even though the fraud cases were a small volume of the firm's overall transactions, they cost them a lot reputation-wise. "Education is one of the best tools we have in the fight against consumer fraud and the educated consumers are better able to protect themselves," he added. "We are heavily engaged with eBay to get the same kind of partnership. We are optimistic we will get somewhere with it," said Nigel Mawer.

As a part of the agreement, Western Union will encourage its staff to reject suspicious transactions. "Money transfer should never be used for sending money to a stranger, someone whose identity cannot be verified," said Bucher. Staff will also issue forms to customers warning them about potential scamsters lurking in the shadows.

eBay Inc., an online auction site, has decided to block the sale and shipment of stun guns and other illegal weapons to New York State residents in order to comply with an agreement made with Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer’s office conducted an investigation last year and discovered that stun guns were readily available and easy for eBay users to purchase. Investigators, posing as ordinary customers, were able to buy 16 stun guns off of 16 different sellers.

“You wouldn’t want these used in either illegal activities or horseplay,” said Spitzer spokesman Paul Larrabee in a statement. “Dangerous devices should not be in the hands of those unable to properly use them and you certainly don’t want them used in any criminal activity.”

The eBay sellers are believed to have sold more than 1,100 stun guns to New Yorkers from September 2003 to August 2005, investigators said. 14 out of the 16 sellers are from out of state. Among the sales were a Taser stun gun that was valued at $57, and an “Air Taser” that delivers a 50,000-volt shock through darts connected by wires to the gun that was valued at $400.

Under the new agreement, NY residents who bid on an illegal weapon will receive an electronic warning from eBay, saying that the purchase is illegal and any transactions that are made will be reported to the proper authorities. eBay has also sent letters out to stun gun sellers and warned them that any sale of such weapons in NY is illegal. Sellers who violate NYS law will have their accounts suspended.

 A church congregation plans to sell its vacant former church on eBay to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Bidding on the former North Meridian United Methodist Church will start at $1, the Rev. Randy Davis said. Bidding will begin Monday and end Oct. 27th.
 
Davis is pastor of Redkey United Methodist Church, which was formed in December when members of North Meridian and Main Street United Methodist churches voted to combine.

The new congregation uses the larger Main Street building in the town of about 1,400 about 15 miles northeast of Muncie.

Church members recently voted to sell the old 7,000-square-foot church, furnishings and parking lot on the online auction site. They will donate the proceeds to hurricane relief through the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

"I don't think many people have tried something like this," Davis said. "But we just thought this is the way to go. It'll widen the market for us."

Some of the old church's furnishings, including pews, will be auctioned separately.

Dan Saylor's health insurance company won't pay for a helmet to correct the flattened shape of his 8-month-old son's head, so he's doing what any parent in this day and age would do.

He's using eBay to sell advertising space on the child's bright white helmet.
 
"Not only can we recoup some of our costs," the 31-year-old Nashvillian said. "But this has been a prime educational tool to educate parents about this problem."

The ad on eBay, which reads, 'ADVERTISE ON BRENDAN'S HEAD!," has received more than 10,000 hits. At the close of bidding last night, the top bid was $3,050.

The eBay pitch: "Here is a unique marketing opportunity for an entrepreneur, a business, a university, sports team, or product to gain some brand recognition as adults cannot help but look at my child, wearing his bright white helmet, when we are out in the public."

Insurers unconvinced

Brendan's pediatrician noticed that the back of his head was abnormally flat at a regular checkup when he was 4 months old.

The condition, called positional plagiocephaly (pronounced "play gee oh seph a lee") is caused by a child's spending too much time on his or her back.

Sometimes the condition corrects itself on its own. But in severe cases it can disfigure a child's face, causing his or her forehead, eye sockets and cheekbones to push forward.

The condition doesn't harm brain development, and insurers generally define treatment for the condition as cosmetic. Most don't pay the roughly $3,000 cost of a customized helmet to fix the problem.

That policy floors Dan and Ann Saylor.

He says it's unethical for his insurer, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, to subject a child to an unnecessary risk just to save a few thousand dollars.

"As a parent I'm not willing to even take the chance," he said. "I want my child to have every opportunity to live a normal life."

BlueCross BlueShield spokes-man Jeff Smokler said that he was sympathetic to parents, but that his company hadn't seen evidence to suggest the therapy is truly beneficial.

"It's not an ideological debate," Smokler said. "It's a matter of best practices and evidence-based medicine."

Dr. Kevin Kelly, director of craniofacial surgery at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, said the benefits of helmets were initially unclear, but that more recent studies had suggested they are beneficial.

Plagiocephaly rates began rising in the 1990s when the American Academy of Pediatrics began urging parents to put their infants to bed on their backs to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Just this week, the group further revised its guidelines to tell parents not to let infants sleep on their sides and to let them sleep with pacifiers to further decrease the risk.

The risk of SIDS far outweighs the risk of plagiocephaly, so Kelly urges parents not to disregard the new guidelines. He said simply giving your child plenty of time on its tummy while awake and making sure the child doesn't always face the same direction while asleep or on its back are often enough to prevent plagiocephaly.

"If parents take a couple of precautions early on in life, then they can try to avoid this entirely," he said.

Brendan as billboard

The idea behind using Brendan as a little billboard came to Dan Saylor after a friend of his, who happens to be a Vanderbilt football fan, joked that he was going to paint the school's logo on the helmet.

Dan Saylor recalls thinking, "Why give advertising away for free when you can sell it?"

Online auction giant eBay is cracking down on the sale of illegal stun guns to New York residents - but there's plenty of other dangerous items still up for grabs.
Razor-sharp throwing stars and hardwood nunchucks are just some of the weapons available to the highest bidder on the Internet marketplace, the Daily News found.

Pepper spray, brass knuckles and realistic-looking toy guns are also outlawed in New York, but there are hundreds for sale on eBay.

The company said it can't be held responsible if one of its sellers ships a product to a buyer in a state where it's banned.

"It has always been the seller's obligation," spokesman Hani Durzy said.

But eBay did take new steps to block sellers from shipping stun guns to New York after a probe by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Acting on a tip, investigators posed as ordinary consumers and bought 16 of the electronic weapons, which deliver paralyzing shocks to their targets.

After Spitzer's office contacted eBay, the company implemented a new monitoring system that will flash a pop-up warning to any New York buyer bidding on a stun gun.

In addition, eBay sent letters to its stun-gun sellers, reminding them that sale and possession of the weapons in New York and six other states is against the law.

Policing eBay sales can be difficult because laws vary from state to state. For instance, a seller can hawk pepper spray to buyers in Georgia, but not in New York.

But even items that are outright banned by eBay are easily found on the site - such as throwing or ninja stars and replica hand grenades.

Durzy said that with 55 million listings, eBay can't review every item for sale and depends on members of its "community" to rat out the transgressors.

"We have a good relationship with law enforcement," he insisted. "Can people try to do dumb or illegal things on eBay? Yeah, but they'll probably get caught."

After being told of the other weapons on the Web site, Paul Larrabee, a spokesman for Spitzer's office, said probers may not stop with cracking down on the sale of stun guns.

"We review all matters that come to our attention and if there are other illegal items for sale on the Internet, we will look into it," he said.

Third in a series on how the computer is changing crime.

When someone calls this city's police to report they've had something stolen - either in a home break-in or a vehicle smash-and-grab - Sgt. Doug Fisher gives out the same piece of advice, again and again:

"Look for your item on eBay."

Fisher says online auction sites are an increasingly popular way to offload stolen goods. EBay is just one of many such sites - others include Yahoo and Craigslist - but it is the most popular.

Fisher's unit receives an average of three or four complaints a month from residents who spot their stolen property on eBay.

And the phenomenon is nationwide. In 2003, a former high school principal from Regina was arrested for listing more than 9,000 stolen items on eBay.

That same year, Calgary police recovered a pair of stolen replica Grey Cup rings on the site.

And in 2004, police in Toronto cracked a sophisticated ring at Pearson airport that stole millions of dollars worth of goods from its cargo bays - including fine wines and computers - then put them up for sale on eBay.

Fisher said such sites are attractive to thieves, because they allow them to make more from stolen goods than they would by bringing them to a typical fence.

"Whatever you take to a pawn shop, you're going to get four or five cents on the dollar (and) they sell it at 60 cents on the dollar," he said. "But if you have the wherewithal to sell the item yourself, you'll get the 60 cents on a dollar."

When police locate a stolen item online, tracking down the seller isn't easy. Fisher said eBay co-operates by pulling down suspect listings when notified, and turning over the names of shady sellers without requiring a warrant. But he added it often takes the company 10 to 20 days before they respond to his requests.

However, eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy says in some cases the company's fraud team provides information to police within hours.

Considering that 5 million new listings go up on the site every day, confirmed cases of fraud - including sale of stolen property - make up less than 0.01 per cent of all sales, he said.

Western Union, the world's largest money-transfer provider, will distribute anti-fraud literature in the U.K. and train staff to detect and cancel improper transactions, said Peter Bucher, regional vice president. Police are discussing a similar program with EBay in the U.K., Detective Chief Superintendent Nigel Mawer said at a news conference with Bucher in London.

The Home Office estimates that consumer scams such as fraudulent Internet auction sites and fake lotteries bilk victims of 1 billion pounds ($1.75 billion) a year. Much of the money exchange happens via wire transfers, police said.

``It's a major, major problem,'' Mawer said today.

Police cited the case of a 73-year-old U.K. woman who lost 21,830 pounds in a lottery scam in 2004 after a fraudster contacted her by phone. She was told she had won 195,000 pounds and needed to send money to cover security, delivery and government paperwork costs before receiving her winnings.

Bucher said money should never be transferred to a person whom the sender doesn't know.

As well as the Kleenex, the successful bidder will get an (presumably obsolete) car phone, radio cassette player and new alarm system. The Roller has done just 5,000 miles since Freddie popped his clogs, making its last public appearance at the London Premiere of We Will Rock You.

The State Attorney General's office received a tip that stun guns were being sold to New Yorkers through the nation's leading Internet auction site. eBay helped authorities in an undercover investigation that netted 16 sellers believed responsible for the sale of more than 1,100 stun guns and Tasers to New Yorkers from September 2003 to August 2005.

The state announced Tuesday that the company also agreed to block future sales.

With eBay's help, undercover investigators bought 16 weapons from 14 out-of-state sellers and two sellers based in New York. The weapons they purchased included: a $400 Air Taser, which shoots darts to deliver electrical shocks; a $50 stun gun that looks like a cell phone; and a 900,000-volt Taser for $57.

District attorneys in New York State's Erie and Suffolk counties are following up on information about two sellers from their jurisdictions. Sellers from other states agreed to pay fines and discontinue sales.

Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Bruce, who led the investigation with Assistant Attorney General Bobby Colon, said during an interview Tuesday that it's not easy to prosecute buyers because they could claim the purchases were for someone else.

New York is among seven states that prohibit possession of stun guns and similar devices. The state allows exemptions for people who turn the weapons over to authorities, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer spokesman Paul Larrabee said in an interview Tuesday. New York State is focusing on getting the weapons off the streets and preventing future sales, not prosecuting past buyers.

"Notices will go out to individuals who purchased the items," Bruce said. "We'll ask if they have them to turn them in."

In the future, however, New Yorkers bidding on the weapons over the Internet will be warned electronically that such transactions are illegal and their activities will be reported. Those who sell stun guns will receive letters notifying them that New York outlaws the weapons. eBay has agreed to suspend sellers who ignore the laws.

EBay Inc's PayPal will acquire VeriSign Inc's payment processing business for about US$370 million to expand services to merchants.

PayPal will pay cash and EBay stock for the VeriSign unit, EBay and VeriSign said on Monday in a statement. The agreement also calls for EBay to buy VeriSign technology that protects online shoppers against identity theft by giving customers special one-time passwords.

The acquisition of the VeriSign business, which processed more than US$40 billion in payments last year, will add US$100 million to EBay revenue next year and add a customer base of 100,000 small and medium-sized businesses.

EBay chief executive Meg Whitman is trying to make EBay, the largest Internet marketplace, more convenient and secure to attract new shoppers to its base of 65 million active users.

"In working with PayPal and EBay, we are going to be offering them our security technology allowing them to offer their users stronger forms of authentication," VeriSign chief executive Stratton Sclavos said in an interview.

EXPANSION GOALS

EBay acquired PayPal, its biggest rival in electronic-payment processing, in October 2002 to include transaction fees from PayPal's nearly 79 million accounts. The addition of VeriSign customers will help PayPal expand its "off-EBay business," PayPal president Jeff Jordan said in an interview.

EBay accounts for US$40 billion to US$50 billion of the estimated US$330 billion in global e-commerce payments, spurring PayPal to seek processing revenue from transactions that don't involve EBay, Jordan said.

The VeriSign unit accounts for about 4 percent of the company's revenue, Sclavos said.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Shares of EBay, based in San Jose, California, rose US$0.56 to US$40.46 at 4pm in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Monday.

Shares of California-based VeriSign rose US$0.96 at 5:40pm after regular NASDAQ trading. They gained US$0.11 to US$20.04 at 4pm. Yesterday's announcement came after the close of regular US trading.

INVESTOR CONCERN

EBay's shares are headed for their first annual decline in five years, signaling investor concern that revenue growth may slow.

EBay agreed last month to buy Skype Technologies SA for US$2.6 billion, its largest acquisition, to enter the fast-growing market for Internet phone service. The company plans to offer the free service on its auction site to improve communication and quicken transactions, chief financial officer Rajiv Dutta said in a Sept. 12 interview.

In August, PayPal reduced processing fees on inexpensive digital items such as US$0.99 mobile-telephone ring tones and music downloads. The move was designed to attract new customers by allowing merchants to process payments under US$2 at a rate of 5 percent plus US$0.05 per transaction. Under the plan, consumers don't have to sign up for annual PayPal subscriptions or fund a pre-paid account.

With little fanfare, eBay(Nasdaq: EBAY) has launched a new area on its site for registered users to provide product reviews and user guides. In exercising my right to review an area that consists of reviews, I'll say that so far the area has been neglected, and it's easy to see why.

Last week, I posted a review of one of the three top-selling CDs singled out in the area. Yet despite the area's beta launch two weeks ago, I remain one of just four members to lend an opinion on The Killers' Hot Fuss. The problem? When I searched for copies of the CD for sale, the reviews weren't integrated into the auction pages. Review pages on a site like Amazon.com(Nasdaq: AMZN) work so brilliantly because they are fully integrated into the online store.

Transforming user reviews into site content is obviously a spectacular concept. Similar to how Tom Sawyer tricked folks into painting the fence, letting your community create the content that may bring in more visitors as the pages are disseminated through search engines is genius. This is a very good move by eBay, even if we are just a couple of weeks into the beta testing process, and even if there are some bugs remaining to be worked out.

It's also another case of eBay trying to legitimize itself as a traditional retailer. Once a pure consumer-to-consumer auction site to hawk old junk, the company has focused its latest marketing campaigns on new (or nearly new) popular items that can be found on the site. The television ads and print catalogs in particular have tried to drive that emphasis home, while the "Buy It Now" option has helped buyers approach eBay as if it were a bona fide online retailer like Amazon or Overstock.com(Nasdaq: OSTK).

Like Amazon, eBay has more than doubled in value since being recommended in the Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter three years ago. Clearly, those companies are doing something right. Another winning pick from that premium research newsletter that has used customer reviews to beef up its sticky database is Netflix(Nasdaq: NFLX).

Testimonials have always been an effective form of advertising. Even though I had my doubts when I saw Amazon.com try this years ago, fearing that negative reviews would dissuade sales, my initial instinct was wrong. Bad reviews only solidify a site's sincerity. That creates customer dependability to the point where visitors feel that they don't have to surf elsewhere to confirm their purchases. So the question isn't whether this move will work for eBay. It will. The question to ask eBay is why it took so long to get here.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a satisfied eBay user -- with the 150 positive feedback recs to show for it. He does own shares of Netflix. The Fool has a disclosure policy. He is also part of theRule Breakersnewsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.

The bra was one of dozens of wardrobe items and other personal belongings that Spears put up for bid on eBay to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina, and bidding on the bejewelled undergarment had surpassed $US60,000 ($A78,833.27) before it was withdrawn on Saturday, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said.

In a message posted on her official website, Spears, 23, told fans she was "concerned that some of you might be confusing this bra with something that it's not".

The message says eBay accurately described the bra as having been worn by Spears during a promotion for an HBO concert special, but "it is not the one I wore onstage during the Baby One More Time performance".

"I feel the correct thing to do is remove this item from the auction because I don't want any of you to feel misled," she wrote. Spears did not explain how the confusion might have arisen.

Earlier during the auction, an eBay staffer had pulled the bra from the site after deciding that it violated company policy that bars listings for used underwear.

But eBay executives later reversed the decision on grounds that the bra was really a piece of entertainment memorabilia, Durzy said.

Spears, who recently became a mother, has sold more than 60 million albums since she shot to fame in the late 1990s with her 1999 debut album Baby One More Time and its hit title track, becoming a worldwide phenomenon at age 15.

With the subsequent albums Oops! ... I Did It Again and Britney, Spears became the first female performer in the history of Billboard magazine to have her first three albums open at No. 1 on the US pop charts.