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Underage internet alcohol sales on eBay

2013; Wiley; Volume: 108; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/add.12182

1360-0443

Rebecca S. Williams,

Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes

Preventing youth access to alcohol online is a burgeoning concern for legislators trying to rein in this growing $2.4-billion-a-year industry 1, 2. While some of this industry's sales come from small independent wineries and craft brewers, many large internet alcohol vendors (IAVs) with expansive reaches exist. Some have a narrow focus on alcohol, such as Wine.com, which ships 2.5 million bottles annually, doubling their revenue over the past 5 years 3. Other online giants such as eBay.com and QVC.com offer alcohol in a diverse online market-place. The popularity of online alcohol sales has even prompted online market-place industry leader Amazon.com to start selling alcohol recently 4, increasing youths' exposure to opportunities to buy alcohol online. While prior research has investigated retail sales to youth 5-7, and anecdotal reports 8-10 have indicated that youth have easy access to alcohol online, there has been little empirical research on this topic, except for a recent study by my research team where eight underage buyers using their real IDs purchased alcohol successfully from 45% of 100 IAVs 11. Using complex search procedures 11, we identified more than 5000 IAVs. The 100 most popular (based on Alexa.com visitor traffic rankings) were selected for purchase attempts after application of exclusion criteria, such as not shipping to North Carolina (the study location). Only 28% of orders were rejected due to age verification at the time of purchase or delivery. Fifty-nine per cent of vendors had weak, if any, age verification at the point of order and 41% had none at all. Age verification at delivery (AVAD), employed by 47% of vendors, often failed, with only 34% of packages labeled for AVAD returned to sender due to age verification failure. The remainder were left at the door or handed directly to the underage recipient. Of particular interest in this study were two purchases made at the world's largest online marketplace, eBay.com, which has $2000 in sales every second 12, annual revenues of $7.7 billion and more than 100 million active users around the world 13. These eBay purchases were worthy of detailed examination for several reasons: (i) eBay's wide reach with young people and adults 14; (ii) eBay is the most visited website selling alcohol; and (iii) eBay had two unique sets of policies governing different categories of alcohol vendors. The first category, eBay-approved wine sellers (EAWS), completed a registration process with eBay to sell wine (other alcohol types were not allowed). Sellers needed to provide documentation of an established wine business and liquor license, and agree to comply with all laws governing the sale 15. While this ostensibly included youth access laws, eBay did not require age verification by wine sellers. The second category was an 'alcohol-related collectibles' (ARC) category that was misappropriated to sell alcohol without restriction. While this category included items such as barware and empty limited-edition alcohol bottles, it also included unopened bottles of alcohol. eBay's policy dictated that ARC products (a) must not be intended for consumption; (b) must be valued for their collectible container, not their contents; and (c) must not be available at any retail store. However, it did not appear that eBay enforced this policy, as simple searches revealed countless unrestricted ARC listings for common liquors that clearly did not meet any of the aforementioned criteria, such as varieties of Bacardi rum available at any liquor store. eBay does not require ARC sellers to have liquor licenses 15. While eBay enacted policies to ostensibly prevent youth access to alcohol, neither seller policy required specific age verification procedures, facilitating underage alcohol sales with few restrictions and no enforcement of eBay's policies. Because these categories of EAWS and ARCs were so different, the main study (n = 100) included purchase attempts from one eBay seller of each type (n = 2). The two eBay stores were identified by searching for 'wine' to find an EAWS store and 'liquor' to find an ARC seller and using the first product in search results available for immediate sale (not auction). In July 2011, using Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved procedures, one purchase attempt was made from each store with a prepaid Visa card by an 18–20-year-old buyer 11. Buyers recorded details of the order and delivery. When encountering age verification buyers were allowed to misrepresent their age, but if they were required to provide ID to complete a purchase or delivery, they provided a real underage driver license. Both orders placed from eBay alcohol sellers were received successfully. The EAWS made no attempts to verify the recipient's age at the time of order, instead relying upon AVAD. Furthermore, this EAWS inexplicably sent the order (a $5.99 750-ml bottle of wine plus $9.99 shipping) twice, on 2 consecutive days. Both packages arrived bearing official FedEx AVAD labeling but, in both cases, instead of asking for the recipient's ID, the delivery driver simply asked the underage recipient if s/he was over 21, handing over the package when s/he said yes. The ARC seller delivered non-collectible, ordinary hard liquor to the underage buyer with no attempt to verify their age at the time of purchase or delivery. It is against federal law to ship alcoholic beverages of any kind via the US Postal Service (USPS) 16, and the ARC seller was the only vendor in the main study (n = 100) to deliver alcohol via USPS, leaving the inconspicuous package in the recipient's mailbox without any attempts at age verification. Neither eBay's EAWS nor ARC vendor verified the age of their customer successfully at the time of purchase or delivery in this study. While eBay ostensibly has an in-depth registration process for vetting wine sellers, the EAWS included in this study fared no better at verifying age than the unrestricted ARC seller. EAWS policy requires generally that the seller comply with all laws governing the sale, but should be revised to include specific instructions regarding verification of buyers' age at both the points of order and delivery. Furthermore, it is important that shipping companies such as UPS and FedEx work with their staff to ensure more faithful execution of their age verification at delivery policies. According to eBay's policy, alcohol sold in the ARC category was supposed to be limited to collectible items not intended for consumption and not available in offline retail stores. Nevertheless, simple searches revealed many sellers offering popular brands of rum, vodka, liqueurs and other spirits available at any local liquor store. While eBay's policy prohibited such sales, lack of enforcement allowed these sales to continue unfettered and allowed minors to order alcohol without providing proof of age. Furthermore, because it is difficult to distinguish definitively between alcoholic beverages that do and do not conform with eBay's requirements that ARC products not be intended for consumption or available in retail stores, and because products conforming with the policy can still cause intoxication, it is critical for eBay to have policies prohibiting ARC sellers from offering 'collectibles' containing alcohol; only empty bottles should be allowed to be sold. Overall, eBay's policies regarding products offered, shipping procedures and age verification requirements for both types of alcohol vendors should be strengthened and enforced actively. Following the publication of the main study, I was contacted by the producers of ABC television's 20/20 program to discuss internet alcohol sales for an episode on underage drinking 17. After discussing my study's findings about underage alcohol sales on eBay with me, the producers successfully documented a teen buying alcohol on eBay for the show 18. Following this negative national news coverage, eBay revised its policy for ARC sellers to allow sales of empty bottles only 19. eBay's EAWS policies have remained unchanged. Continuing to understand patterns of youth access to alcohol in an ever-changing internet environment is therefore critical; as this case demonstrates, research can play an important role in drawing public and legislative attention to important policy and enforcement gaps, and in provoking policy change to promote health. eBay has the ability to ban alcohol sales or restrict them in ways that minimize sales to minors, yet at the time of this study their policies were vague and widely unenforced. This resulted in an environment where countless eBay sellers hawked alcohol in an unrestricted manner, in violation of eBay's own polices. As a result, minors could easily order alcohol for home delivery without showing proof of age. This study provides compelling evidence of the potential for underage purchases of alcohol via the internet, and the need for further examination of underage purchase attempts in today's dynamic internet environment. While state and federal policy reform is needed to restrict online alcohol sales to minors, e-businesses such as eBay and shipping companies such as FedEx can do much to restrict such sales in advance of legislative change by simply revising and enforcing their existing policies. Further research is needed to determine the effectiveness of these companies' policy and enforcement procedures as they evolve. The author has no financial interests related to this study to disclose. Dr Williams had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis, as well as writing of the manuscript. At the time this study was conducted, Dr Williams' primary appointment was with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; she still maintains an affiliation with the Center, but her primary appointment has recently been moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. This work was funded by grant no. 64747 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Substance Abuse Policy Research Program. The funding organization had no role in the design and conduct of the study, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data or in the preparation, review or approval of the manuscript. Dr Williams would like to express her appreciation to four University of North Carolina colleagues for their roles in this manuscript. Dr Kurt M. Ribisl collaborated on the development of the study, Allison Schmidt contributed to the revision and refinement of the manuscript and Allison E. Meyers and Catherine Jo reviewed and provided insightful feedback on an early draft of the manuscript.