Appeals Court Upholds Conviction Against eBay Fraudster

Using special software to harvest the contact information of eBay shoppers amounts to mass marketing, a U.S. appeals court had ruled in upholding hefty fines and jail time for a man who used the technique in swindling dozens of the online auction site's subscribers. The decision by a three-member panel of the Appeals Court for the 3rd Circuit supported a lower court's ruling that Frank Richard Nickens' conviction on 67 counts of wire fraud was worthy of greater penalties under federal law that takes a dimmer view of "mass-marketing" scamsters.