You never know what you might find on eBay – from antique furniture to toothpicks and sports cars to soiled underpants, it’s all there if you want it. And if you have the cash.

Something else that you’ll inevitably come across lurking on the auction website is the common or garden fraudster, an item which may end up costing you a lot more than you bargained for.

Thankfully, one such fraudster, Julie Flood from Maidstone in Kent, has been thrown in the slammer for 16 months after scamming almost £40,000 from would-be holidaymakers on the website.

The 45-year-old Flood admitted 27 counts of theft after it was revealed that she had promised 19 people fake holiday packages including a stay in New York and a trip to Disneyland, Florida.

At Maidstone Crown Court, recorder Simon Blackford accepted that Flood hadn’t set out to con people initially.

Said he, “Even if it hadn't started as a scam, and I accept that it did not, by March 2005 your scheme had become, in effect, a swindle on a substantial scale. You were lying to your customers regularly and frequently when it became increasingly clear that you could not honour your obligation to them.”

According to the BBC, Flood had built up a high eBay customer rating after previously trading handbags on the site, although she had been given a community order for selling fake goods in 2006.

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