Christian Hardman (eBay) and Ben Dugan (CVS) say they have a model for battling organized retail crime.
Photographer: Niki Chan Wylie/BloombergConsumer
To Catch Retail Thieves, This Unlikely Duo Treats Them Like the Mob
Would-be rivals CVS and eBay joined forces to go after theft rings with tactics the feds use against organized crime.
Christian Hardman has shuttered thousands of eBay accounts in the past decade as the online retailer’s lead on criminal investigations. One suspicious account, though, kept slipping through his fingers: a century-old pawnshop in Philadelphia.
Society Hill Loan looked like a legitimate retailer. Its eBay reviews were 99.6% positive. But Hardman had a hunch the steep discounts on commonly stolen items like Roomba vacuums, Gillette razor blades and Nicorette gum were just too good to be true.