A 43-YEAR-OLD man who conned eBay customers out of £10,000 has today pleaded guilty at court.

David Cartmell, of Wyther Park Terrace, Armley, Leeds, was convicted of eight offences of obtaining a money transfer by deception at Bolton Crown Court.

In January 2006, Cartmell started to trade on eBay under the user name '2006Cartmell'.

He bought and sold various computer goods, kitchens and other household items and eventually got such good feedback from buyers that he was awarded 'Power Seller' status by eBay.

This is a stamp of approval from the online site that told customers they should be able to buy from Cartmell with confidence.

During September 2006, Cartmell started to mainly trade in computer equipment including laptops and computer memory.

Like everyone who uses eBay, people interested in Cartmell's goods would send e-mail bids for the product.

Typically, Cartmell would have an average of 10 people bidding for each item, meaning there could be 10 potential victims per item.

A number of people continued to bid for products and were then asked to send cheques, made payable to David Cartmell, to a house in Bury.

These cheques were then paid into Cartmell's bank account, but none of these bid winners ever received their goods.

These victims then posted negative feedback on the site which resulted in '2006Cartmell' being suspended by eBay.

Cartmell's victims sent money from all over the world for goods that never arrived. Orders went dishonoured from as far afield as Ireland, Jersey, the Isle of White and Holland.

In December 2006, police executed search warrants at two houses in Bury, one belong to Cartmell's girlfriend and the other belonging to his father.

At 2.35pm on June 7, 2007, Cartmell was arrested on suspicion of deception at Heathrow Airport after arriving back in this country from a foreign trip.

Detective Constable Matthew Hamer, of the Major Incident Team, said: "Cartmell's deceptions were a cynical and calculated attempt to con people out of their money.

"He initially built up enough of a good reputation on eBay to persuade people that he was a reliable and honest operator.

"However, he clearly had no intention of honouring people's successful bids and just raked in the money from unsuspecting victims.

"Many of these items would have been for Christmas presents or birthdays and he has left a lot of very upset customers behind."