Long Beach Police Department Installs e-Commerce Exchange Zones

Recently, the Long Beach Police Department designed, purchased, and installed signage at the North, West, and East sub-stations that identify the public parking lots at the stations as “e-Commerce exchange zones.” Citizens, both sellers and buyers, are now able to arrange to meet at one of the police sub-stations to conduct e-commerce exchanges. These e-commerce agreements are usually generated from online, private party, sale websites like “offerUp” and “craigslist”.

Regrettably, suspects often lure victims to locations under the false belief that they will purchase an item from a seller. When the seller arrives at the meeting location, the suspect then steals the item from the seller/victim.

The police department believes that by offering these exchange zones at police department locations that are monitored by surveillance cameras and are staffed with police personnel, that citizens will avoid meeting sellers/buyers at other locations and ultimately reduce the number of citizens from becoming a victim of an e-commerce theft crime.