Ebay trader jailed for selling fakes
Calcot man Glen Lewis has been jailed for eight months for duping Ebay customers into parting with £51,000 in exchange for bogus blockbuster movies and designer sports shoes.
The 35-year-old father-of-two, whose user-name was 'I'm the Daddy', bought pirated films from a Phillipines-based website and sold them on as £5 bargains.
He also conned buyers by claiming cheap Chinese-made shoes were genuine Timberland, Nike, Puma and Adidas items.
But Reading Crown Court was told that trading standards officers, who raided Lewis's house in Piercefield after complaints from Ebay users, seized a computer containing records showing sales of $95,000 worth of fakes on Ebay in the past year.
Lucy Luttman, prosecuting, said buyers were fooled because Lewis had managed to establish an excellent track record.
Ms Luttman said on April 15 last year trading standards officers bought copies of The Exorcist and Oceans 12, and a £60 pair of pink 'Timberland' boots, from 'I'm the Daddy'.
Tests revealed all three items were cheap counterfeits and on June 2 trading standards officers swooped on Lewis's home with a search warrant and confiscated 1,023 DVDs, 47 pairs of 'Timberland' boots, four pairs of 'Puma' trainers, four pairs of 'Nike' and three pairs of 'Adidas'.
All but two items, she said, turned out to be fakes and in court Lewis admitted 18 charges of possessing counterfeit goods.
He admitted 18 charges of possessing counterfeit goods. Giles Curtis-Raleigh, defending, said Lewis was not running a business and saw it as a hobby.
He added: "As profit has been made it has been churned back into the buying of goods.
"His total profit is represented by the goods that were received."
Jailing him, Recorder Guy Hungerford told Lewis: "By doing what you did you were deceiving buyers and you were receiving money which you would not have received if false trademarks had not been put on these goods."