Internet law buying and selling

The Internet is the world biggest store. Whatever you are looking for is available over the Internet, from Cattle and Goats, over a MiG-21f fighter jet (was on eBay, bought by a Chinese businessman for almost $30mn) to William Shatner’s kidney stone. At some point, all of this was really for sale. When Britney Spears shaved her head in a rage, the hair salon tried to auction it on eBay days later, but Britney filed a court injunction, so the sale got cancelled. Bids were topping one million dollars.
There are laws regulating what can be sold on the Internet and also in which manner the purchases have to be handled. There are differences from country to country, mostly because the laws these buying and selling practices have been based on, but generally there is lately a strong movement towards consumer protection. The Internet business is a huge piece of pie; nobody wants to ruin his chances to enjoy the benefits of selling on the Net, except criminals, who are there only to perpetrate fraud and other illegal actions.
Although there are provisions to protect the consumer, some businesses try to incorporate certain dishonest sub-charges, mask them as shipping and handling, where although you thought you bought a bargain, at the final end you wind up paying more. This practice is very present on eBay, the auction web portal. Sometimes the sellers even list an item they don’t have for a bargain, and then contact you with the offer to substitute the more expensive one with a cheaper item for the same price, without letting you know that. This is also defined as fraud and is a criminal action. Another bad practice on the eBay portal is price gouging, where the one of the bidders is either the seller himself or an accomplice. This is also illegal and has criminal charges and permanent IP ban on eBay as a consequence.
The best advice is to shop with well established and recommended sellers. Not everyone wants to sue for every bad delivery; therefore, although most likely you are protected by law, you may consider shopping with publicly acknowledged vendors. A very big company with a billion dollar turnover will not scam little purchasers buying cologne or a couple of DVDs.
Be strongly advised to refrain from shopping for anything that looks too good to be true. There will be no Ferrari Testarossa for $ 1 or the Brooklyn Bridge, although in 2005 the wife of a British DJ, Tim Shaw, sold his Lotus Esprit on eBay for 50 pence, with the provision to pick the car up the same day. Mr. Shaw got caught flirting with another woman, so his wife paid him back this way. It got sold within 5 minutes.