Seattle Man Gets Two Years for eBay Fraud

A Seattle man has been sentenced to two years in prison for selling computers and cameras on eBay but never actually delivering the goods.

Over a four-year period, Jordan Dias, 40, collected more than US$94,000 from victims who thought they were purchasing items from a legitimate seller, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday in a statement.

Dias, who defrauded more than 100 people via this scam will now have to pay more than $73,000 in restitution, and serve three years parole after his 24-month sentence.

This type of Internet auction fraud is the most frequently reported type of online crime, according to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a clearing-house where consumers can file online crime complaints.

In 2006, the last year for which data is available, the IC3 logged more than 207,000 complaints relating to auction fraud. That amounted to about 45 percent of all complaints received.