Full text of email sent to Ebay fraud victims

Here is the full text of the email sent by a Hampshire Police constable to the Ebay fraud forum members. Names have been removed to protect the identity of those involved:

I would like to start by saying thank you to all that have emailed me with the details I requested.

When I posted my message on this forum I will be quite honest and say that I never believed the number of victims would grow so fast. I have been away for two days and came back to almost 100 emails.

This has caused a small problem in its own, firstly, that responding to 100 emails takes a lot of time and so I sent a standard email to many people. Some people probably felt annoyed by this as the email was not really giving them much direction on what they should do. I apologise for this but could not have done it any other way.

The other point I need to make is that at the moment I am only investigating crimes that have been committed in Hampshire. I believed at the time the forum contained just these victims, however, I am being sent suspect names that do not (on initial reading) link into the suspects I am investigating.

Ebay has a big problem and there are many people trying this same scam all over the UK. I appreciate that this is frustrating for you all but you have to understand that I have to (and only allowed to) investigate crimes that have been committed in my force area. Any crimes that I cannot link to my own will have to be referred back to your local police force.

So, what I suggest is that anyone in this forum who has been a victim should firstly, report it to their local station and obtain a crime reference number. Allow your force to make the basic checks, i.e account checks on where you money was transferred to. This will tell them who owns the account, where it was set up etc, addresses you will not be given by your banks.

If then it links back to Hampshire I will take on the investigation and give you a Hampshire Crime reference number. You will be added to my growing list and I will continue to update you as a group. DO not tell your local force that I am collecting all the crimes as they will not then start the investigation and we will lose valuable time. Instead, you can explain to them that Hampshire have an investigation started on certain suspects but they must make the link first.

I have no problem with people emailing first to tell me the account details, just so I get an idea of what is happening but I will not be able to do much more than that at that stage.

Please continue to send me information that you feel is important, I may not be able to respond to all of you straight away as I am getting loads of emails, however, I will look at every one and assess its value and action accordingly.

I am a very keen ebayer myself and people who exploit the good feedback of others to commit crime makes me just as mad.

Lastly, can you all in future either put your Hampshire crime reference number in the subject heading box or simply your name (easier to read). And please no swearing, some have contained inappropriate language which I then have to explain to my boss. Not all, just some. Sorry if I sound like I’m moaning.

Again, many thanks to all of you.