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MERCHANT 911 PRESS RELEASE ARCHIVES

February 2003

Merchant 911 Submits Plea to Ebay --- Tuesday, February 4, 2003

Merchant 911 has been aware for some time that Ebay allows the posting for sale of magnetic stripe readers, blank credit cards, and other items used to produce counterfeit credit cards. In the past, numerous attempts to contact them via Email have only produced bounced messages and auto-responder replies that have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Today, after some difficulty, Merchant 911 was able to contact Mr. Joe Sullivan, Ebay's Director of Compliance and Law Enforcement Relations. Mr. Sullivan's initial response was that they permitted these types of items since they had some legitmate uses.

We pointed out to Mr. Sullivan that guns, dynamite, and body parts also have legitmate uses, but also have legitmate sources and Merchant 911 doesn't believe Ebay should be an outlet for any of those either.

Ebay has agreed to explore revision of the policy. We applaud that exploration and hope that Ebay's policy will be revised appropriately.

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