Authorities in New South Wales are closing in on an alleged online auction fraudster.

The NSW Police declined to provide specific information about the male suspect but told ZDNet Australia that its investigation concerned instances of fraud in which mobile phones, jewellery, and computer equipment and peripherals were auctioned online but never delivered to buyers.

The police had planned to nab him last week but the man has thus far evaded custody, said Inspector Bruce van der Graaf.

"We were unable to find him at his current address when the arrest was to take place," van der Graaf, the spokesman for the police Fraud Squad's e-crime unit, said in an interview.

He added the investigation involves "47 matters that fraud investigators had linked to a single offender."

News of the impending arrest has provided a warning for consumers. Van der Graaf said that instances of graft at online auction sites reported to the fraud squad were on the rise.

Typically, high-ticket items in new and near-new condition are used as bait. Fraudsters often accept low-bids on items, usually requesting bidders to pay for goods via a credit card or money order such as a Western Union transfer.

Faking it
Brian Boys, commerce manager for Yahoo-owned online auction site Sold.com.au, said the company monitored its auctions closely for fraudulent activity and banned sellers that had received poor ratings from users.

Yahoo claims that over 99 percent of the hundreds of thousands of auctions listed on its sites are genuine.

However, Boys conceded that it was very difficult to keep track of the postings, and that site administrators were reliant on the community to regulate online auctions.

ZDNet Australia conducted a cursory search of Sold.com.au for purveyors of counterfeit watches--an activity that is prohibited under Sold.com.au's terms of use.

A simple search using the site's public search engine revealed three advertisements placed by sellers purporting to have brand new Rolex watches. Rolex's Web site contains a notification that its watches can only be purchased through authorised Rolex jewellers warning consumers to avoid anyone offering counterfeit watches over the Internet.

One of the ads for counterfeit watches had been running on Sold.com.au since as early as last month. When it was brought to Yahoo's attention, the company requested details of the posting in order to remove it.

Going it alone
Some victims of fraud on online auction sites have taken matters into their own hands by posting dummy entries on both e-Bay and Sold.com.au to warn buyers about entering transactions with sellers they consider to be suspicious.

One consumer, who was defrauded of nearly AU$3,700 last year, believes that attempting to track and regulate fraudulent activities on online auction sites is a lost cause. He told ZDNet Australia that after spending 200 hours over three weeks compiling a list of over a hundred suspicious auctions--which were then forwarded to Yahoo--the portal's legal counsel ignored his request to initiate investigations into the matter.

The Fraud Squad's van der Graaf advised consumers to use common sense and take precautions when conducting transactions with strangers over the Internet.

"If you've been offered a AU$100,000 diamond for AU$10,000 from someone that you've never seen before--which is one of the things that appears to have happened--then you've got to ask yourself: 'What's going on here?'," he added.

Van der Graaf encouraged people to use third-party payment services such as Escrow if they intend to spend more than AU$300 on an item or attempt to contact the seller via landline to verify their legitimacy.

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