"I didn't mean to spend $40k on eBay"

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I’ve long thought there should be some kind of breathalyser attachment for eBay. You know what I mean, you have a few bevvies on a Friday night, come home, check out a few of the more amusing categories, and before you know it you’ve bought CDs by bands you haven’t liked since you were twelve, or worse still, half the .

So spare a thought for a Pennsylvania woman, who yesterday admitted to running up more than $40,000 on her employers’ credit card, on a two month eBay shopping spree. Asked by the judge, “What did you do with the stuff?”, the 54 year old woman said, “It sat in my house… I didn’t really mean to do it.” Police searching her house found unopened packages in the garage, and others, damp from the rain, on the back deck. She had given away a couple of New York Yankees jerseys, but kept everything else.

The unstoppable shopper now has a 15 year suspended sentence, 3 year’s probation and must pay nearly $4,200 in restitution. She’s also undergoing mental health treatment. Her boss claimed his money back from the credit card company, who presumably in turn claimed it back from the poor sellers. It’s expected that the sheriff’s office will auction off her purchases, though reports don’t specify whether they’ll be going back to eBay.

5 Responses

  1. If all the payments have been reversed, you would have thought that the title to the goods would also have reverted to the original sellers, damn cheek for the sheriff to get the benefit…

  2. So the sellers are left holding the bag for this lady’s mental health issue? Typical. If the packages are unopened, presumably it would be easy to simply “return to sender”, don’t you think?

  3. There is a serious issue here as well as the undoubted snigger factor and the questions about what happens to the funds and the goods:

    Compulsive spending is a recognised symptom of bipolar disorder (still often called manic depression). Online shopping in all of its forms (not just eBay) is just as destructive to someone in that phase as online gambling.

    I am not saying that excuses the individual involved and, for her sake, I hope that the mess gets sorted out. I also hope that, if she does need it, the individual involved gets treatment and that it is a help to her.

    Nor do I have a solution for the wider problem. But it is an issue and it does need to be raised.

  4. Edited the last post and I still garbled it!

    I meant to say that I hope the mess gets sorted out for everyone else’s sake and that she gets whatever treatment she needs for hers.

  5. A 15 year suspended sentence? Why waist the paper.. 3 year’s probation sounds like it fits the crime. I’ve seen drug dealers get less than 3 year’s probation though. AS far as the money, it is always the State or Government to get their cash first AND THEN the victims. The sellers of those items will most likely get screwed. Ahh the fun of business!

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