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by Terry_Roll 1652 days ago
There is another "fraud" which is sometimes considered to be financial arbitrage where an Ebay or Amazon seller sells a product in a country or territory that was intended for sale in another country or territory. An example being electrical goods from Hong Kong being sold in the UK market.

Many electrical products come with a plug adaptor for the main three types of electrical sockets and range of voltages, obviously due to British ties, there is English speaking manuals but manu manuals in practice have a range of languages in the documentation, and for all intents and purposes the product will work perfectly fine if used in the UK, yet exchange rates & taxes (or lack of) means its cheaper to get the product from Hong Kong and then ship to the UK.

People in Hong Kong ship goods in bulk from Hong Kong so they are already in the UK and then operatives in the UK set up an Ebay account so even Ebay or Amazon dont know.
1 comments
irthomasthomas 1652 days ago
That is simple geographic arbitrage; a common business model, not even "fraud". It may, at most, be a breach of some companies T&Cs, but breaking T&Cs is not normally a crime.
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Terry_Roll 1652 days ago
Fulfilment of the warranty is the fraud when the vendor goes bust. Whilst a contract is with the vendor and not the manufacturer, when the vendor goes bust/closes/stops trading, the warranty obligations transfer back to the manufacturer. So its a fraud because the manufacturer could refuse to meet any warranty obligations especially if they can prove it was a product sold in an over seas market and not the local market. This does happen, but its complex.
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nl 1652 days ago
The vendor going bust isn't fraud. It's the vendor going bust.

If the vendor can't handle warranty obligations then (depending on your jurisdiction) they might be in trouble, but it still isn't fraud.

In the US, grey market good are generally legal (under first-sale doctrine). In the UK they aren't (under R vs C and others).

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Terry_Roll 1652 days ago
>The vendor going bust isn't fraud. It's the vendor going bust

Whilst its not fraud, the fact anyone including the former directors of now deceased company can also appoint their own liquidators, and liquidators generally work for who ever is paying the bill, it is all but fraud in name.

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nl 1652 days ago
That maybe so, but it's those actions that are the problem.
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