Sports Memorabilia Site Defrauds Hundreds in Jacksonville

This little story that I read that emerged out of Jacksonville, Florida really blew my mind. According to the story, Jacksonville police had been hearing rumors about some guy that was allegedly defrauding hundreds of people online. According to the rumor, the Jacksonville man defrauded hundreds of people through his sports memorabilia site by accepting credit card payments for merchandise but then failed to deliver the merchandise. Despite the rumors, it took several months before any action was taken.

Now, the fact that the police didn’t act on rumor can possibly be forgiven. After all, rumors are spread every day. No one can really fault the police department for failing to take action sooner because no one had actually filed a formal complaint. There hands may have been tied at that point.

The part that really blows me away is the fact that police would only take action after the local Better Business Bureau gave them the names of roughly 400 people that had been victimized. Why in the world were these people simply contacting the Better Business Bureau and not bothering to file charges? And, if the Better Business Bureau was receiving so many complaints from people about this business, why did it take so long before the deadbeat was finally exposed?

“It’s always been to the point where we never had anyone come in and file a complaint against him,” said JPD detective Sgt. Daniel Franklin. “All these people were contacting the BBB, and the BBB [were the ones that actually] brought it to us.”

So, why in the world didn’t the police bother to check in with the Better Business Bureau to find out if any complaints had been filed? Now, they have 400 names to sort through and, to this point, they have been able to contact about 30 of them.

It seems the 40-year-old man, Eual Brent Hallford ran TradingCardCollectibles.com, which supposedly sold sports memorabilia. After items had been paid for at the online store, the items never arrived. Some that complained were offered store credit, but when they attempted to redeem their credit were unable to do so. According to Sgt. Franklin, some of the victims lost out on $50 while others lost out on as much as $45,000.

Hallford has been charged with five counts of credit and debit card fraud. If convicted, he’s looking at the possibility of 2 years in prison. He may be facing more charges, however, as the police department says they’re receiving calls every day from possibly even more victims. Furthermore, the U.S. Postal Service and the FBI have both expressed interest in the case. Currently, he’s out on bond after posting the required $25,000.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Card Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.