Man Charged With Selling Stolen Bras On eBay

By Mike Sachoff - Wed, 09/03/2008 - 14:55

Buyers gave him good reviews

A New York man has been arrested on charges of selling $80,000 worth of stolen Victoria's Secret bras on eBay.

George Tutaya, 41 of Queens, used a number of eBay seller names including bestfordivas, shopforless2 to sell 2,000 bras. The bras, which retail for $40 to $80 were purchased by shoppers at a discounted rate of $25.

"Excellent and fast shipping!" one of the buyers of Tutaya's stolen merchandise said on eBay. "Great eBay seller, wonderful to do business with," another said. Tutaya had a 100 percent approval rating from his customers.

Tutaya did not steal the bras himself but was connected to a professional shoplifting ring. When police raided his home they found business records that indicated 2,000 sales along with 650 bras wroth $26,000.

Tutaya was arraigned in Queens Supreme Court for possession of stolen property, and held in lieu of $7,500 bail. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.

"Trafficking in stolen goods on the Internet will no more be tolerated than fencing stolen property would be anywhere else," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown told the NYP.

News Tags: Technology, Legal, Victoria's Secret, eBay

About the author:
Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews.

8 Comments

By International SEO (WPN reader) - Sun, 09/28/2008 - 12:27

It was about time that they

It was about time that they start cracking down on this kinds of rings. Ebay is not the only and last black market though.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Sat, 09/27/2008 - 19:45

The Bra

How is it a simple body part can make so many people become blithering idiots?

By Donald (WPN reader) - Mon, 09/08/2008 - 21:36

Ebayers are not as bright as they would like to think

In this case, one can see why positive feedback was left for this guy. You paid, you got the genuine goods - that's that.

But ebayers do lots of things:

They leave positive feedback to get positive feedback back.

They leave positive feedback because they got the goods - without seeing if the goods are in fact good. No bull, I had a run in with one seller on ebay over a computer I won, he had a good feedback rating, so I emailed one of his previous happy computer customers, and they replied, we haven't opened it yet. They hadn't checked the computer, but they still left positive feedback.

Then there are ebay sellers with lots of positive feedback, they hover just above the 98% level, but when you check out their feedback closely, you find that the hundreds of negatives tend to relate to two or three items, but the negatives are being swamped by the 1000's of positives for other items they are selling. I complained to ebay and to PayPal about the practice of one seller doing this - they both said, feedback is too good, we aren't worried. So the seller is allowed to continue to sell a small % of items which the seller knows isn't going to work and which the feedback showed he wouldn't exchange or refund on.

So, yes, how good is the positive feedback score on ebay that sellers have? It's just an indication, that's all, one that some sellers are definitely using to rip off a smaller number of ebayers.

By Games (WPN reader) - Mon, 09/08/2008 - 00:11