Well, this is exciting.

About a year ago I got stung on eBay, foolishly sending off a cheque for £35 for the boxset of Battlestar Galactica series 3, which never arrived. The vendor’s feedback seemed good but clearly the system doesn’t always work.

(Note to close relatives and family members: if anyone tries to give me a hard time about this confession, I will bring up the subject of who recently ordered a £55 bottle of wine in a restaurant without checking the price. Are we understood?)

eBay themselves spotted something dodgy about the vendor because they emailed me to say they were closing the account – conveniently and thoughtfully, it was soon after I had mailed the cheque. It was too late to cancel, the cheque had already cleared, and frankly it wasn’t worth going round to the guy’s place because he lived in the Far Frozen North. I put it down to experience and nowadays only buy DVDs’n’stuff on Amazon, if I do it online at all. And I pay by Paypal or card.

But today I get an email from a detective constable in Far Frozen North CID, saying the guy is under investigation, and my name is one of the 255 eBay have provided him with as having bought something off him in December 2007 or January 2008. Would I mind letting him know what happened? All the sums involved were quite similar to mine, most stingees did like me and put it down to experience … so over a two month period the perp was quietly amassing 255 x £35 or thereabouts, which = quite a lot.

I’ve sent off my report and copies of the emails that were exchanged. Funny that now I can fantasise far more exciting punishments than I could a year ago when I was quietly resigning myself to my loss. Gene Hunt is never around when you want him. Or Judge Dredd. Or Lord Vetinari.