Electronic Auction Fraud: An Insight into the Green Snake in Green Grass

Abstract

The emergence and commercialization of the internet in the mid-1990s have revolutionized everything man hitherto does manually. Man’s quest to reduce human drudgery became exerting, and his wish that he could wake one day and get everything (including his sleep) done with the help of computers intriguing. This quest is as a result of the internet. In the world of e-commerce, since the formal launch of the internet in 1995, auctioneering became the first-child driven from the comfort of man via the use of computers connected together in a network (internet). Before the birth of e-shopping, dozens of eauction systems were developed and launched in 1995, including on sale (the first ever e-auction site), Auction Web, Esty, eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, etc. Auctioneering, derived from a Latin word augeo meaning "I increase" or "I augment” is driving the world of e-commerce till date. The benefits of electronic auctioneering cannot be over emphasized. Compared with e-shopping, e-auction allows buyers to bargain price that suit their taste and desire- the reason it is widely patronized. In spite of its numerous benefits, e-auction is on a daily basis facing fraudulent activities- which the researchers see as a green snake in green grass. The paper x-rays the benefits of e-auction at a glance, and takes an explicit/concise look at the various eauction frauds with simplicity of styles to help participants of e-auction understand how these fraudulent activities are perpetrated at each stage of the auctioneering process by fraudsters, and proffer measures that will help auction participants avoid being scammed or victimized.