Popular health and beauty products sold on Internet auction sites could be stolen, tainted and possibly dangerous, according to a warning issued today by the National Retail Federation.
Advil, Visine, baby formula, diabetic testing strips and other goods are being stolen from stores, warehouses and cargo trailers and peddled on EBay and other online auction sites, said Joseph LaRocca, the group's vice president of loss prevention.
Because crooks typically don't keep what they steal in temperature-controlled environments, baby formula and medicines might be contaminated before they're delivered, he said. Although many retailers market health and beauty products online, the anonymity of those who use auction sites heightens buyers' vulnerability.
"In the online auction world, you do not know who you're buying the product from and you do not know where the product came from," he said. La Rocca said he wasn't aware of anyone who had been harmed by using such products, but he and others maintained that there was a risk.
"I would think people would find it pretty scary that they didn't know where this bottle of pain reliever or children's cold medicine had been for the last six months," said Tony Heredia, a former Central California law enforcement officer who is now director of assets protection for Target Corp.
The situation poses another kind of risk to retailers, which lose as much as $30 billion a year to organized retail crime. "It's an issue for every retailer," said Dan Fogleman, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Although retailers have always been plagued by shoplifters and unscrupulous employees, problems posed by organized crime have grown as the Internet has made it easier to unload merchandise.
"We've seen a huge increase over the last two years or so in organized retail theft activity," Heredia said. Street gangs, traditionally drawn more to drug sales, have zeroed in on retail theft as it has become more lucrative, he said. Recently, Target cooperated with law enforcement in a sting allegedly involving MS-13 gang members, he said. He would not say where it occurred because the case was being prosecuted.
A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said in an e-mail that the agency was working with auction sites that "filter out and take down auctions for prescriptions or over-the-counter drugs."
