OTISFIELD – An Otisfield woman is due in court in October to answer a charge that she stole $1,100 from a Virginian, who sent her the money for a nonexistent Hummel figurine advertised on eBay, police said.
Ellen Marie Burnham, 46, of 69 Rayville Road, Otisfield, was arrested Sunday at her home after several weeks of investigation, Oxford County Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Landis said Tuesday. She is charged with felony theft and is scheduled to appear in 11th District Court in Paris in October, Landis said, although the case is expected to go to a grand jury before then.
Landis said Burnham posted information about a Hummel figurine on the online auction site, but the item never existed.
Hummels are ceramic figures of plump, round-cheeked children and have been collected since 1935.
“She admitted to not following through with the transaction by taking and spending the money and of not ever sending the figurine she never had,” Landis said.
Sudie B. Stafford of Gloucester Point, Va., bought what she thought was Burnham’s Hummel, called Ring Around the Rosie, for $1,100, but never received it, she told her local sheriff’s department.
The Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office a few weeks ago, which led to Burnham’s arrest.
“The crime I feel was committed in Otisfield,” Landis said, adding that Burnham used her home computer to post the nonexistent item on the Internet.
Burnham, who told jail officials she is a self-employed cleaner, posted $500 unsecured bail and was released from the county jail in Paris. She did not return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday.
Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman and one-time Sun Journal sports reporter in 1990, said at any given time, about 100 million items are listed on the worldwide online marketplace. To help prevent fraud, the company employs a team to work with local law enforcement agencies around the world to track down illegal activity.
“If you are a criminal and you have a choice of defrauding someone in the real world, in relative anonymity, or of listing something on eBay and not delivering it,” Durzy said, “it will be a lot easier for police to track you down,” on eBay, because the company has a record of sellers’ addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and credit card numbers.
Durzy recommended that buyers only purchase from sellers on the site who have a positive feedback record and who use safe methods of payment, like credit cards or PayPal, eBay’s payment site. PayPal will also guarantee payments up to $1,000 if an item is never delivered, arrives broken or is not as described, Durzy said.
Landis said he did not contact eBay during his investigation.
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