Ebay is still one of the hottest places on line to buy just about anything, and that especially means jewelry. There is a lot of jewelry, which means there is a lot of competition between jewelry merchants. That may be why one Ebay jewelry seller tried to get over on his Ebay customers. From Jewelry Seller on eBay Fined $400,000:

A jewelry company on eBay Inc. that allegedly bid on its own auctions to illegally drive up prices by as much as 20 percent agreed to pay $400,000 in restitution and penalties, the New York state attorney general's office said on Saturday.

Ezra Dweck and employees of his company, EMH Group, placed more than 232,000 such bids worth some $5 million over about a one-year period, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office said.

Dweck and EMH Group have also been banned from the online auction industry for four years under the terms of the settlement agreed to by the parties, Cuomo's office said.

A lawyer for Dweck and EMH said they had resolved the matter "only to avoid an interminable, costly battle with the AG's office."

"EMH and Mr. Dweck did not intentionally encourage any fraudulent bidding," the lawyer said. "A buyback program, which was vetted by two attorneys, was created to give winning bidders an incentive to sell back to EMH certain items."

EBay brought the case to the attention of the attorney general's office and helped in the investigation over several months. The world's largest online auction company has been trying to demonstrate to buyers and sellers that it is making aggressive moves to halt fraud on its sites.