11/25/2005

Has the Internet Increased Theft?

There is an interesting article about how a man was stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars by switching barcodes on boxes of Legos to pay a cheaper price for them. After wrongfully purchasing the Legos for a lower price he would then turn around and sell them on the internet. This man was able to make lots of money by selling his semi-stolen boxes of Legos for less then the store was selling them for. The internet has made private party sales easer which has increased the incentive to steal products for the purpose of reselling them.

1 comment:

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Savannah's post for spelling errors.

I wonder how much the internet is relevent to this story. People have always stolen things this way. I'm bothered by the fact that there is little or no discussion of whether 1) this has increased with the internet, or 2) are we just better able to measure it or catch people because of the internet.