More than two dozen types of health and beauty products that are sold through online auction sites have been stolen and possibly contaminated, according to the National Retail Federation.
The warning comes less than a month after federal agents and local police in Florida arrested a theft ring that it said operated for about five years. The suspects were charged with stealing a variety of products from retail and grocery stores across central Florida and selling them online.
Such product theft in the retail industry poses a safety risk, says Ronald Buzzeo, chief regulatory officer at Cegedim Dendrite, which provides products and services to the pharmaceutical industry.
"Once products get stolen, no one cares how they're stored, especially when it comes to temperature controls," says Buzzeo, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent. "All they want to do is to unload it and sell it, whether it's on an Internet site or a flea market."
Retail theft totals about $30 billion a year, according to an FBI database. Yet even more serious than the financial loss is the health concern, says Joe LaRocca, the NRF vice president of loss prevention.
"The products are supposed to be maintained at certain temperatures and not supposed to be kept in moist environments," LaRocca says. Because thieves seldom store merchandise in temperature-controlled environments, baby formula or over-the-counter medicine can spoil after being stolen.
Even cosmetics may melt and solidify if temperatures rise too high, Buzzeo says. Tainted eye shadows could hurt sensitive eyes.
Online auction sites don't typically regulate over-the-counter drugstore products sold on the sites, LaRocca notes. By contrast, drug chains are regulated and subject to rules set out by the Food and Drug Administration.
The Florida investigation arrested 18 people and charged them with racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering. The ringleaders sold stolen items on an eBay site as well as their own sites and at flea markets, says Grady Judd, the sheriff in Polk County, Fla.
The top household products that are stolen and resold by criminals, according to the NRF, include Abreva cold sore medication, Benadryl allergy medication, e.p.t. pregnancy tests and Cover Girl cosmetics.
"The pennies a shopper may save buying drugstore products through Internet auction sites," LaRocca says, "are not worth the potential health risk."
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