As most of you know, I buy and resell stuff to make a little extra bread. We’ve even incorporated that into the podcast for years with our award-winning show, This Or That. Being a reseller is nothing new, but with the advent of the internet, more people are aware of it now and I would guess more people are trying to cash in these days.

With more people doing it, groups pop up to help or educate other buyers. I belong to them on Facebook & Reddit, all discussing resale. Most guys are scrolling their IG timeline in bed, I am looking at what some dude in Alabama bought at a city wide garage sale.

In these groups from time to time a theory get’s brought up. It’s crazy to even think about it, but some people really believe it. It’s about Beanie Babies & Money Laundering.

Seemingly smart people think that someone spent $1,000,000.00 on a beanie baby. Using a website that tracks actual sold prices tells a different story.

Now, I don’t know if ANYONE actually paid these prices, it’s really just showing what offer was accepted. As you can see, the offer accepted was actually $200 and while that is still crazy, some people are just crazy. If that wasn’t enough, there are still people even more nuts than this.

Money Laundering On eBay!

Yes, among the craziest things I have heard, people think criminals are using eBay to launder their illegal income! To top it off, they are using the once very collectible TY Beanie Babies to do it! Let’s look at this theory. This guy is talking about the infamous “black diamond” Disney VHS tapes, but the same theory applies to Beanie Babies.

Wow. I’m not sure people understand how eBay works, so let me break it down for you. When you sign up to sell on eBay you need to provide a Tax ID# or your SSN. Back in the day you didn’t get reported to the IRS unless you had over $20k in sales, NOW you get reported if your sales are over $600. So if you have a good business that is thriving so much you need to launder your illegal cash, you have to go legit and pay taxes on it. Now, in addition to the taxes, you also pay fees on the purchase price. It’s about 15%. Taxes, if you can’t prove any real cost, are about 20%. So you are taking a 35% loss right out the gate.

In the example above, a guy needs to deposit the money into his account to get this money clean to send to the drug dealer. So how many friends does this guy have? Because if you keep depositing cash into your account, big brother gonna ask you where you are getting this money. So you gotta spread it out among multiple people. Now you gotta trust someone who is willing to work with a drug dealer. I wonder how that goes. This is starting to sound like work, a real fucking job!

I’m not gonna say I know how people launder money, BUT if you really needed to claim some cash to pay taxes, there are places you can go and not have to pay the eBay fees. Here are some examples –

Real-Estate Laundering
Casino Laundering
Bank Laundering
Trade-Based Laundering
Layering
Laundering Money Through Cash Businesses
Structuring

https://www.jumio.com/money-laundering-examples

Again, I am no expert, but something tells me 35% isn’t a good rate to launder money. So while the theory is pretty fun to think about, I really doubt criminals are on eBay selling Princess Diana beanie babies to launder their illegal funds. Thanks for reading!

-MSS