Judgments | A teenager “sold” a computer part online, but mailed the buyer a rock

Helsinki the court of appeal ended up sentencing the son born in 2005 to a fine for fraud, even though the district court had rejected the charge.

In the spring of 2021, a boy living in Ostrobothnia had sold a video card for 1,400 euros on the internet site Tori.fi, for which a buyer was found in Helsinki.

At first, the transaction went well: The buyer transferred the requested amount to the boy’s bank account, and he acknowledged that he had received the money. Next, the boy sent the tracking code to the package that was supposed to contain the expensive graphics card.

When the buyer had requested the shipment, the package had seemed strange. A stone was revealed inside it.

When the buyer contacted the boy, he claimed to have sent the video card. The boy ended up blocking the buyer’s connections on Facebook, for example, because according to the boy, the buyer’s behavior was threatening.

The buyer had also searched for the boy’s mother on Facebook. The mother was angry at the accusations against her son and claimed the buyer was a fraud.

Helsinki the district court ended up dismissing the charge. According to the court, it was also possible that the buyer had received the graphics card and was now trying to cheat, as the boy claimed.

The prosecutor appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal.

The Helsinki Court of Appeal did not find the boy’s story credible, in which he said that the package weighed considerably more than the graphics card because he had included a fan and spare parts as covers.

The Court of Appeal sentenced the boy, born in 2005, to a 60-day fine for fraud committed as a young person.