Online auction fixer faces £50k fine

Paul Barrett, the first person convicted in the UK of making sham bids on eBay, could be fined £50,000 after pleading guilty to 10 charges under consumer protection laws.

Barrett, a 39 year old minibus driver from County Durham, had engaged in “shill bidding” – the online practice of using a different username to bid on your own auctions.

In pleading guilty Mr Barrett said that he had not realised that bidding on his own items was a criminal offence.

Mr Barrett is due to be sentenced at Bradford County Court on 21 May where he faces fines up to a maximum of £5,000 for each of the 10 offences.

This will no doubt act as a strong deterrent to other unscrupulous traders and should provide some consolation to those who have paid over the odds.

Posted by Ryan Harrison
0121 237 3950
rharrison@brownejacobson.com

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Tags: Consumer, online auctions, trading standards

This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Consumer contracts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.