weird eBay

You use to go to garage sales or even council pickups to hound through other peoples junk… now you just head to ebay. Not even St Vincent’s de Paul or The Smith Family would appreciate some of the items people are trying to flog on ebay.

This week alone, a handbag used by Tana Umunga in a drunken nightclub incident fetched almost $20 000 in an online auction on ebay. Not even a Gucci handbag would fetch this much money. For the lone fact it had been touched by Umunga the price escalated and people are willing to pay so much money to brush with fame.

This is just one of the weird things sold on ebay that fetch for auction every single day. From animtated pen stands, to lucky socks, some people try to flog anything. Weirdebay.com is a website designed to highlight some of the odd and peculiar items sellers post for auction.

A man, “davy_parry” attempted to sell a chicken nugget which he claimed on one side you could see Mother Teresa, when you turn the nugget over, Pope John Paul II was staring at the seller. He tried to sell this off as having, “a great spiritual meaning for most faiths. I truly want it to go somewhere that it can be cherished for a long time to come.” Thank goodness no one bid on this weird item.

Debate always surrounds ebay’s use for selling tickets to concerts, sporting matches and the like. ‘Scalping’ cannot be stopped and although ticket distributors claim to be able to cancel tickets, it would actually be almost impossible. Scalping has been done for years and it isn’t about to stop now.

Ebay, the online market place was asking for buyers to spend thousands of dollars to secure tickets to the Ashes. If you’re willing to pay the price and you’re smart enough to buy the ticket’s then profit on your won accord.

In the case of the Ashes ticketing debacle, Cricket Australia have only themselves to blame. Making the option only via phone or internet and a maximum ticket purchase of 10 tickets per person per day… This is ludicrous. It should have been a maximum of 4 tickets per person per day and this would have given other people opportunities to buy tickets to the game they want.

Solution – there is none. People will spend as much money as they want to get what they want, if they can. Why? We are powerless to stop scalping and the selling of weird items on ebay because they can!