eBay Auction For All The Gamblers

How would you like to purchase a "mystery tube" with "something of value" in it. Normally I wouldn't even write about such stupidity, but this one is interesting because 74 people have bid on it so far (with the high bid being $2,050), and there are still more than 5 days left on the auction. It always amazes me to see people bid such high dollars for something that they have no clue what it even is.

If you want, check it out and make a bid if you are crazy.

Soldier In Iraq Selling US Flag On eBay

A soldier in Iraq has put a US flag up for auction on eBay. This is the flag that was flying over his base the day Iraqis voted for the first time. The proceeds of his auction is going to be used to buy Internet access for his Platoon.

The auction has already received 34 bids, with the high bid currently at $1,525. If you want to help his Platoon get Internet access, you can check out the auction. One thing that has me curious though, is if they don't have Internet access, how is it for sale on eBay? :)

Golfer Seeks $10k From Sponsors Via eBay

Brian Payne is looking to raise money to defray his PGA Tour event costs. For a minimum of $10,000, he will give half of his earnings to the winning bidder's charity of choice. For $25,000 you can put your logo on his golf bag, hat, etc.

You can sponsor Brian over here if you want.

FBI Probes Ford Worker

James Thomas, an employee of Ford motor company is being investigated for selling copies of software on eBay that is used only for controlling industrial machines (like robots) typically used in manufacturing.

First of all, you are an idiot if you steal something, then sell it on eBay. You are even more of an idiot if you steal and sell something that obscure and unique. Maybe he should have stole cars, and hooked up with the guy selling VIN numbers with no car... Oh wait, he got busted too. :)

Lerach Coughlin Law Firm Files Suit Against eBay

The Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins law firm (how's that for a name? bahahaha) filed a class action lawsuit against eBay today in the California Superior Court in Santa Clara. They think eBay is using "hidden shill bidding" against it's own customers to drive up the auction prices.

Why do they think this? Well, it's because eBay sends out the following notice to bidders that are close to being outbid: "Important: You are one bid away from being outbid.  If another user places a bid, you will not win.  To increase your chances of winning, enter your highest maximum bid."

That message is to let them know that if they don't raise their maximum bid, and another bid comes in, the eBay system cannot bid any higher on that item on their behalf.

This is what eBay had to say about it... "Shill bidding is the act of artificially inflating the price of an item by a bidder working in concert with the seller placing bids that they have no intention of actually paying," he said. "Shill bidding is not allowed on eBay, and we take action against anybody who we determine has engaged in shill bidding. A bidder who has been outbid by another bidder and chooses to increase their maximum bid is not shill bidding."

It's things like this, that makes me realize that law school most certainly does not teach anything about technology (and reminds me a bit of the Winn and Sims law firm).

UFO Crash Debris For Sale On eBay

Someone (who has terrible grammatical skills) is selling parts from the 1947 Roswell UFO crash.

It looks and sounds like some interesting stuff... metal that you can form like clay. I want to play with it, but I'm not going to pay $2,000 for it (which is what the starting bid is set to).

You can bid on it here if you want.

eBay Ads Buyer Protection For Australia

Today, eBay announced it has expanded it's buyer protection program to it's ebay.com.au site. It gives buyers up to $1,500 (AU) protection from items that are sold and paid for with PayPal.

Buffalo Nickel Life Savers

A student in Franklin, Indiana found a life saver that looks like an old buffalo nickel in his pack of Life Savers.

So what's he going to do? Sell it on eBay of course. Golden Palace will probably buy it and pay for his tuition.

You can check out the auction over here. Currently there are 20 bids, with the high bidding at $17.27.

Prostitute Selling Services On eBay

It's not too hard to read between the lines on this auction. Some chick (with half naked pictures of herself on her auction) is offering a "Personal Alarm Clock" service for 10 days.

Basically she lives with you and contains this description: "This live-in service awakens you in whatever method you find most pleasing. Satisfaction Guaranteed."

At $100,000, this is a pricey "alarm clock" if you ask me. :) But if you want to check it out, you can do so here.

Mystery Box

For the gambling type, now you can bid on something where you have no idea what you are bidding on. This auction is for a "mystery box" that will contain something when you buy it.

So far bidding is up to 102.50, with 33 bids placed so far (obviously someone is interested). You can check out the auction by clicking here.

Abe Lincoln French Fry

Golden Palace has purchased another item on an eBay auction for the publicity (I think this might be the most expensive one so far too with the closing bid at $75,100).

It's a McDonald's french fry that is in the shape of Abe Lincoln. What's more interesting is that it's not real (it's a plastic prop they used in a commercial). It was a pretty funny commercial that featured a couple who made the impossible discovery of the french fry while eating at McDonalds and then decided to sell it on eBay.

The proceeds from the real auction are going to go to the Ronald McDonald charity foundation.

Human Skull For Sale

How would you like to be the proud owner of your very own human skull?

For those looking for a mint condition human skull, the best part about this one is the "teeth are very nice".

Someone should cut the top of the head off, and turn it into a salsa dip bowl. Perfect for a halloween party!

Currently there is one bid for $300. If you want to bid on it yourself, you can do so over here.

Secrets For Sale in eBay

A probe by University experts found that computer equipment sold on eBay often contains all sorts of information. They found things like explicit emails, business secrets, usernames and passwords, children's school records, etc.

A check of 100 hard drives showed that half of them contained private information. Great, now we are going to get people phishing for user names and passwords by purchasing computer equipment on eBay.

Hey dummies, if you want to sell your computer, maybe you should erase the hard drive (do a low-level format to be safe)!

Pregnant Woman Sued Over eBay Auction

An online casino that had their feelings hurt because a pregnant woman refused to sell her belly as advertising space to them (she instead sold to Golden Palace Casino).

Even though people selling things on eBay are not obligated to sell to the highest bidder, they are going to piss and moan about it and sue the lady to try and get some free publicity (I'm not even going to list their name because I don't think they should get any publicity, but their domain starts with "sun").

Golden Palace has earned a name as the casino that buys all sorts of wacky stuff on eBay (Virgin Mary Sandwich, Grandfather's Ghost, Human Ad Space, etc.) Maybe the suing casino will get their publicity by suing people running eBay auctions.

Stupid.

Golden Palace Casino should pay her legal fees to get some more good publicity. Then when they win, they could solicit the service of Winn and Sims to help collect her newly found bad debt. :)

eBay Treasure Hunt

eBay is putting together a promotion that actually looks kind of fun in a stupid, eBay junkie sort of way.

They are giving away $25,000 per day (25 $1,000 prizes per day) for 8 days starting today ($200,000 total for people that can't do math).

Basically you get clues to solve a puzzle and then search eBay listings for the item with the hidden prize.

You can check it out over here if you want.

Man Sentenced To 7 Years For eBay Scheme

A mother and son duo were sentenced to prison today after they were arrested for selling what they knew were stolen goods on eBay. The mother (Laura Wasz, 52) received 5 years, eight months and her son (Bruce Wasz, 33) received 7 years.

Basically they bought goods that were stolen from Home Depot and sold them on eBay. They were both ordered to forfeit $1M each.

Laura's father (and Bruce's grandfather) Ralph Amadeo said, "It's unfair. I feel sorry for both of them. They don't deserve this. My daughter's a sweet girl. She worked three jobs, day and night for her kids." Well Ralphy, it looks like you raised some criminals there buddy. How exactly is it not fair?

Man Tries To Sell Title and VIN, But No Vehicle

Michael Alex James from Shelbyville, Indiana decided it would be a good idea to sell a "clean" vehicle title and the VIN numbers from a 1965 Chevrolet Impala on eBay. Detatching a VIN number (and/or possessing one not attached to a vehicle) is a felony.

The buyer was an Indiana policer officer, and he was arrested shortly afterwards. I wonder if he gets to keep the $348.11 he got for it, and if so, I wonder if that's enough to cover his attorney costs. heh

Keywords Too Wild For eBay

At an analyst's meeting today, Bill Cobb (the President of North America for eBay) has said, "Pricing is a little wild right now. We have to focus on getting fair value.", in regard to keyword pricing for online advertising for popular search based ads (for example Google AdWords).

Cobb went on to say that eBay will keep it's online advertising in line with previous levels. He also mentioned that eBay is developing a proprietary software to make eBay a "better bidder" on keywords.

It's all supply and demand... and with more businesses turning to online keyword advertising, eBay is just feeling it the most because it's one of the largest keyword advertisers in the world.

Bloody Scribblings and a Heroin Addiction

How would you like to acquire someone's heroin addiction? If that's not good enough for you, you also get 2 sketches she did with her own blood (with a hypodermic syringe of course).

Truthfully, it's probably a good cause... She is now clean and the $5,000 sale (if it sells) will go towards putting herself through college this summer.

Rent.com Deal Changes

Due to eBay's stock slide, they are reworking their Rent.com acquisition. It was originally going to be done mostly with stock, but now it's going to be an all cash deal.

Michael Jackson For Sale: $199.99

Now you can have your very own Michael Jackson oil painting to hang in your living room. This is a museum quality piece of crap art that you will be able to cherish and pass down through the generations.

That's one scary picture that I really don't want staring back at me anywhere at my home (or life). If you want it, it's yours, bidding is currently at $199.99, and I don't imagine you will have much competition.

The First Strike On The Web

Users angry over eBay's fee hikes are now joining together and organizing an online strike against eBay.

Users are going to go on strike and not use eBay betweeen February 18 and February 25. At which point they probably will all go back to using eBay even with the fee hikes simply because there is no other realistic option. Overstock.com is probably the closest competitor, but they aren't much of a competitor to say the least.

eBay Lowering (Some) Fees

After users created an uproar over newly raised fees, eBay has tried to make friends with everyone again, offering to lower a few fees.

They announced they are going to credit eBay Store owners $15.95 for their April eBay Stores fee. They also said they are lowering the fees for inexpensive auction items from $0.30 to $0.25.

To me, this seems like a pretty weak gesture on eBay's part.

Magical Cereal Not So Magical

I wonder what happened with the magical Apple Jacks? They don't seem so magical to me, considering the Eagles lost the Super Bowl.

Eagles "Omen" Apple Jacks

Some lady said her daughters Apple Jacks cereal were arranged to look like the Philadelphia Eagles logo without her touching them. So what does she do? She dries them, mounts them on cardboard and sells them on eBay to an Eagle fan and his friends (a Los Angeles DJ bought it for $760).

Because of this cereal bowl, they think the Eagles will win the Super Bowl. I should make a Patriots logo with Lucky Charms and sell it on eBay.

Personally, I think it's a load of crap... it's pretty much an mathematic impossibility of such a thing.

Google Knocks Off eBay

With Google's stock going up, and eBay's stock going down, Google has knocked off eBay as the largest "Internet" company. Right now, eBay has a market cap of $50.25B with Google coming in at $55.63B.

Buy Your Own Grandma

You can now buy a grandma on eBay. The winner of this auction will receive homemade goodies once a month as well as gifts and cards on holidays and birthdays.

Currently bidding is up to $250, and if it doesn't go too high, I might consider bidding myself. :)

Genius Tries To Sell Parts For Plane Not Used Yet

Some really smart guy tried to sell parts from an Airbus A380 superjumbo plane on eBay. That's all fine and dandy, except for a couple things:

• Parts (even scrap) are under tight security control


• The first A380 isn't going to be delivered to customers for another 2 years

So I don't think it's hard to pin it back to an inside job at the manufacturing plant, and I also don't think the guy is going to get many bids considering no one even HAS an A380 (so spare parts are pretty useless I think).