Internet Swindling Not a Crime: Court
AMSTERDAM, 01/06/13 - Internet swindling is in many cases not a punishable offence. As a result, swindlers that offer goods via the Internet and fail to deliver them after payment has been made, often remain unpunished, it appears from a ruling by a district court in Haarlem.
The court was ruling in a case against a man from Beverwijk who had used Marktplaats.nl to dupe dozens of people. Each time, he promised to supply a book or CD, but failed to do so after it had been paid for. Money that he received ranged from 15 to 55 euros. According to the court, the man’s action did not fit in with the descriptions of swindling in the Criminal Code. For this, a perpetrator must give a false name or quality, and there was no question of that in this case. Even the fact that the man repeatedly and knowingly wheedled money out of people without supplying what he had promised does not amount to a punishable deed in the eyes of the law. |
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