Government report on eBay MRE auctions

[kman]

Interesting report about a US Government investigation into MRE sales on eBay:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06410r.pdf

I'll have more to add later because I've been meaning to bring up this subject.

Here's a summary:

In summary, after investigating 1 day of MRE sales on eBay, we found that 8 of 12 eBay sellers we investigated were selling MREs over the Internet. In addition, there is evidence that at least some of these MREs were diverted from hurricane relief efforts. Specifically, 2 of the MRE sellers, who were victims of Hurricane Katrina, accumulated cases of MREs during the relief efforts; however, rather than consume all of the MREs, they sold some of them on eBay. In addition, a member of the Georgia National Guard who was mobilized for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts may have stolen and sold MREs intended to feed other mobilized servicemembers. Because this National Guard member refused to provide information that would have corroborated his claim regarding how he obtained the MREs, we concluded that it is possible, and perhaps likely, that he obtained the MREs through unauthorized or improper means, such as theft. Although we cannot conclusively link the remaining five MRE sales to the hurricane relief efforts, our investigation revealed additional instances where sellers may have improperly obtained MREs and sold them to the public for private gain.

[dirtbag]

And it's still legal to buy,sell and posess MRE'S...... wonder what this 'investigation' cost?

[WILD_WEASEL]

Very interesting post for me. I’d ordered 2 cases of MREs from one of the sellers listed in this report and never received the goods. I ended up filing a claim with Ebay/PayPal to get a partial refund. Thought he was a dead beat but turns out the MAN put him out of business, sorry for any hard feelings if you read this.

[DangerousDave]

I wonder what happened to Cajin Clara. Gee. I almost bought into her(his) "lets do a free case(then 2 free case) draw" lottery. Hmm. Just kidding. A case is a case, but when you start trying to hawk pallets of Gov't. property, you are bound to get the binos on your six.

[dirtbag]

I think this is him/her:
cajunangel-62
Maybe...

[Hell Devil]

I've ordered from Cajun Clara three or four times. Always good cases. I actually won her drawing a few weeks ago. That worked out to $2.06 an MRE for three cases.