Published in News

Life for sale, Redux

by on26 June 2008

Image

eBay auction goes awry


We reported
earlier about a man who was auctioning off his life, including his house, car, job and friends, to the highest bidder on eBay.  The eBay auction was to last a week and as it progressed along it seemed to be a huge success. Ian Usher, 44, was drinking champagne and celebrating after the bidding on his Australian lifestyle hit 650,000 Australian dollars (315,000 pounds). However, the next day the bidding had reached 2.2 million Australian dollars (1 million pounds), and he became suspicious.

After some investigation, Usher discovered that a registration system for bidding on the eBay auction site had not even been activated. He contacted the highest bidders and all gave excuses for their bids, such as blaming others for making the bid without their knowledge to claiming their eBay password had been stolen, and thus withdrawing their bids.

Usher said, "They are just idiots, absolute idiots. I think I was speaking to kids most of the time."

As a result, Usher has now deleted most of the bids, although some may have been real, but so far they all have fallen short of his reserve.  The top offer only reached 300,100 Australian dollars (145,000 pounds), which Usher claims is not even 75 percent of his home’s value.  Usher indicated that the value of the assets for sale, which include his fashionable home with an indoor spa and all of its contents, was between 450,000 and 500,000 and that he was confident of reaching that point.

If he doesn’t meet his minimum reserve he can always go back to his old life. At least he knows it’s worth something now.

Last modified on 26 June 2008
Rate this item
(0 votes)