Barret, the Director of a minibus firm, is the first eBay fake seller. He was charged yesterday for boosting the prices of the items that he was selling by bidding in his own auctions.

He was found guilty and was ordered to pay £3,500 and £1,456 as costs for Bradford Crown Court. Barret admitted 11 other violations of trading regulations and was ordered to do 250 hours of unpaid service.

Barrett was arrested after a customer had complaint about buying a minibus from Barret with low mileage. This complaint opened the lid on many others schemes operated by Barret, exposing his technique of forgery.

Barret managed to make his profits by using two logins, "paulthebusman" and "shanconpaul". He used one to advertise and sell items and the other to bid on the same item as to increase the price. He would even leave a comment after winning a bid saying, “Item is great”.  He once fooled the customers by increasing the price of a pie and pastry warmer to £127, after he placed five bids in the last 35 minutes before the deadline.

What saved Barret from the jail sentence is that he has a clean record with no previous felonies of dishonesty.

The verdict restored the trust of the internet users by saying that the stuff that they are buying online, are monitored by authority.