RAMNICU VALCEA, ROMANIA -- This small industrial center in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains is not Albena Spasova's favorite destination. Driving the twisting highway makes her ill. Once she arrives, danger lurks.

U.S. Secret Service agents escort her, for her safety. Over the last two years, they have kept watch on dozens of trips, some lasting weeks, others months, as she has spent long days foraging through case files with local police and long nights holed up in one of the town's few hotels, with her windows locked.

"You don't know who to trust there. You can't use the hotel phone line. When you step outside, you can spot the local hackers in their cars, circling around," said Spasova, 33. "The Secret Service agents always book my accommodation and make sure I'm in a room next to them."

Ramnicu Valcea is an improbable capital of anything, but this obscure town is a global center of Internet and credit card fraud. And Spasova is an accomplished online fraud buster, helping to take down cyber-crime gangs across Romania. She isn't an FBI agent, though, nor a Romanian police officer.

Spasova works for EBay Inc.

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I think we all remember what happened the last time ebay went & started shootings IT's mouth off about Romania.

I hope the hackers let them have it again. Bigtime!

This really smacks of something akin to racism when you look at it. We all know the problem is not a country or region or it's people. This is just cheap pathetic weaseling on the part of ebay & nothing more.

Let me remind any readers here that the real scammers are in San Jose, & their motto is:

"Just a Venue"

Those 3 little words make legal any sleazy rotten dishonest garbage they think up, and ensures they get a cut of everything, regardles of who gets robbed ripped or burned.

The fact is that ebay could end nearly every last scam by using real registration at the gate, remove active scripting insertion ability to the UGC on the site, do away with html based emails containing links, and second chance offers.

Why don't they? Simple. Somehow they get a cut of every scam.

Of course IT would still be the Counterfeit Capital of the World

http://budmalcolm.bravejournal.com/entry/25032