DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado lawmakers are considering new online marketplace legislation they say is designed to cut down on brick-and-mortar retailer theft.
Organized smash-and-grab operations seen nationwide result in loot for sale online, according to retail industry analysts. The scheme involves perpetrators offloading merchandise quickly. A bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers wants to change that by regulating the “wild west world” of online commerce.
“This is a really good example of us being smart on crime,” said State Rep. Dylan Roberts, a Democrat representing Eagle and Routt Counties.
His colleague, Republican State Rep. Terri Carver of El Paso County, agrees.
“We have tried to align Colorado law with what other states are doing,” Carver explained.
Carver and Roberts are spearheading House Bill 22-1099 to apply some pawnshop rules to the online marketplace.
“[The legislation requires] a certain amount of basic information to deter the fraudulent and anonymous sellers of these stolen goods,” Carver said.
That basic information includes a seller’s name, tax ID number and a business address for those selling 200 or more items in a year grossing $5,000 or more. The idea is to dissuade bad actors from covertly unloading stolen merchandise online for easy money.
“This is an issue that’s affecting all Coloradans,” Roberts said. “We know that this type of theft is costing businesses in Colorado hundreds of millions of dollars a year.”
Those losses trickle down to consumers in the form of higher prices on goods. Higher prices are even more unattractive amid inflation uncertainty.
“They go in and they steal large amounts of product, and then they try to flip them on these online marketplaces,” said State Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, a Democrat representing areas of Arvada and Westminster in Jefferson County.
Zenzinger plans to champion the bill in the Senate and move it to the governor’s desk. She said it’s modeled after a piece of federal legislation that’s been bogged down in Congress.
“D.C. kind of operates at a slower pace, and we’ve decided here in Colorado that we don’t want to wait,” Zenzinger said.
If passed legislatively and signed by the governor, Colorado residents should expect large-scale online seller disclosures starting January of 2023. The full House votes on the bill Wednesday.