By Tina Tseng
FOR SALE: 24 small children that come with their original warranty papers and clothing. All are ages 2-5, and have many years of experience in the Japanese language. Shipping costs vary depending on order size. The above description was taken from a real eBay auction posted on February 20, 1999. If you think no one would take such a posting seriously, then you’re wrong. The auction ended with five bidders. Out of curiosity, I looked up the seller’s member profile and read through his buyer feedback. To my surprise, out of the thirteen responses, nine were positive comments about his delivery of children. Here is some of the feedback: “Timely shipment, but three of the kids were Mexican! Please advertise properly.” “Kids delivered as promised. Hard workers.” “Quickest response time I’ve ever seen, but some suffocated on the way over.” I bet Pierre Omidyar never saw this coming when he founded eBay in 1995. The online auction mechanism was meant to be a positive place for people to set up their own businesses and find great bargain deals. In Omidyar’s words, “Ebay has helped people pursue their individual passions and discover their own power to make good things happen.” As it turned out, people did go for their own passions, and, boy, what passions they have! Everyone at some point in his or her life must have wished to exchange lives with someone else for a day or even a month. Instead of going to your school, meeting your friends, and living in your own home, you could literally lead another life. How is that possible, you may ask? Well, sure enough, go to eBay! A college student in Tallahassee, Florida auctioned his own life at USD 10,100. For that price, he will not only fill the bidder in on everything about his life but also help the bidder hook up with all his ex girlfriends. At least he’s selling his own life and not like this other guy who set his fiancée up for sale with a starting bid of USD 1.00! The most recent one I’ve found is someone putting her father’s ghost up for sale. The story goes that this woman’s son believed that his grandfather’s spirit was haunting their house. To appease her son, the woman decided to auction her father’s spirit form, which took the shape of the old man’s walking cane. The bid ended at USD 75,000. Whether that money really changed hands hangs in the air. You may be wondering, doesn’t eBay have regulations against the selling of prohibited and illegal items? Sure, eBay has a whole list of “Prohibited and Restricted Items” on its website, but with more than 3.6 million postings added daily, it is impossible for the company to screen advertisements. Used clothing, for example, has to be thoroughly cleaned before being sold. (How can they tell from a picture?) Human parts and remains, faces, names and signatures, downloadable media, brand name misuse, forged autographed items, and counterfeit items are a just few categories on the restriction list. But, really, how hard is it to type out the words “authentic” in front of the item description? Where there’s a rule, people will always be bound to break it. But isn’t it fun to see what kinds of weird things you can come up with and try to sell them off at outrageous prices? Next time, instead of suing someone, how about listing the person for sale on eBay? a
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
|