Strange eBay Sale Items

Unusual sale items

In May 2006, the remains of U.S. Fort Montgomery, a stone fortification in upstate New York built in 1844, were put up for auction on Ebay. The first auction ended on June 5, 2006, with a winning bid of $5,000,310. However, the sale was not completed, and the fort and lands surrounding it remain for sale and have been relisted on the site several times since.

In February 2004, a scrapped F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet was listed on eBay by Mike Landa, of Landa and Associates, with a starting bid of $1,000,000. He was the legal owner of the plane after purchasing it from a scrap yard and also offered to have the plane restored for flying condition for a Buy It Now price of $9,000,000. Landa also told potential buyers that maintenance of the plane would cost roughly $40,000 a month for just 2 to 3 hours of flying time. The FBI told Landa that he could only sell the plane to an American citizen residing in the United States, and that the plane must not leave US airspace. The auction ended without a sale.

In December 2005, a brussels sprout cooked on Christmas Day was listed by "crazypavingpreacher" (Andrew Henderson of Darlington, England). It sold for £99.50 on 4 January 2006. The sprout had been frozen and was sent by first class post in insulated packaging to the buyer, "5077phil". The listing was reported in the Daily Star, making the front page (and was followed by a series of "copycat" listings of various vegetables). The proceeds of the sale were donated to Tearfunda major Christian relief and development agency working in the third world. This sprout was the first cooked brussels sprout to be sold on ebay.

In January 2006, a British man named Leigh Knight sold an unwanted brussels sprout left over from his Christmas dinner for £1550 in aid of cancer research.

In May 2006, a Chinese businessman named Zhang Cheng bought a former Czech Air Force MIG-21 fighter jet from a seller in the United States for $24,730. The seller, "inkgirle", refused to ship it. It is not known whether he was refunded.

In June 2005, the wife of Tim Shaw, a British radio DJ on Kerrang! 105.2, sold Tim's Lotus Esprit sports car with a Buy It Now price of 50 pence after she heard him flirting with model Jodie Marsh on air. The car was sold within 5 minutes, and it was requested that the buyer pick it up the same day.

In May 2005, a Volkswagen Golf that had previously been registered to Joseph Ratzinger (then a cardinal, who had since been elected pope and chose the regnal name Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005) was sold on eBay's German site for €188,938.88 ($277,171.12 USD). The winning bid was made by the GoldenPalace.com online casino, known for their outrageous eBay purchases.

A seaworthy 16,000-ton aircraft carrier, formerly the British HMS Vengeance, was listed early in 2004. The auction was removed when eBay determined that the vessel qualified as ordnance, even though all weapons systems had been removed.

Water that was said to have been left in a cup Elvis Presley once drank from was sold for $455. The few tablespoons came from a plastic cup Presley sipped at a concert in North Carolina in 1977.

A Coventry University student got £1.20 for a single cornflake.

A man from Brisbane, Australia, attempted to sell New Zealand at a starting price of $.01AUD. The price had risen to $3,000 before eBay closed the auction.

An Australian newspaper reported in December 2004 that a single piece of the Kellogg's breakfast cereal Nutri-Grain sold on eBay for AUD$1,035 because it happened to bear a slight resemblance to the character E.T. from the Steven Spielberg movie. Apparently the seller went on to make even more money in relation to the sale for his appearance on a nationally televised current affairs program.

One of the tunnel boring machines involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel was auctioned on eBay in 2004.

A group of four men from Australia auctioned themselves to spend the weekend with the promise of "beers, snacks, good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs" for AU$1,300

Disney sold a retired Monorail Red (Mark IV Monorail) for $20,000

The German Language Association sold the German language to call attention to the growing influence of Pidgin English in modern German.

In late November 2005, the original Hollywood Sign was sold on eBay for $450,400.

In February 2007, after Britney Spears shaved all of her hair off in a Los Angeles salon, it was listed on eBay for $1million USD before it was taken down.

In September 2004, the Indiana Firebirds arena football team was auctioned off, first in a regular auction that failed to reach the reserve price, and again as a "Buy it Now" item for $3.9 million.

Bridgeville, California (pop. 25) was the first town to be sold on eBay in 2002, and has been up for sale 3 times since.

In April 2005, American entrepreneur Matt Rouse sold the right to choose a new middle name for him. After receiving an $8,000 "Buy It Now" bid, the Utah courts refused to allow the name change. He currently still has his original middle name "Jean".

In 2004, a partially eaten, 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary sold on eBay for $28,000.

In January 2008, four golf balls were auctioned on eBay after being surgically removed from the carpet python which had inadvertently swallowed them whilst raiding eggs in a chicken enclosure. The story attracted considerable international attention and the balls eventually sold for more AUD$1,400. The python recovered and was released.

In May 2008, Paul Osborn of the UK listed his wife Sharon for sale on eBay, alleging that she had an affair with a coworker.

In June 2008, Ian Usher put up his "entire life" on auction. The auction included his house in Perth, belongings, introduction to his friends, and a trial at his job. When bidding closed, his "life" sold for $384,000.

In August 2008, Dr Richard Harrington, Vice President of the UK Royal Entomological Society, announced that a fossilized aphid he bought for £20 from a seller in Lithuania, was a previously unknown species. It has been named Mindarus harringtoni after Dr Harrington. He had wanted to name it Mindarus ebayi, but this name was disallowed as being too flippant. The 45-million-year-old aphid, preserved in a piece of Baltic amber, is now housed in the Natural History Museum in London.

In October 2008, amidst the 2008–2009 Icelandic financial crisis one seller had put up Iceland for sale. Auction started with 99 pence but had reached 10 million pounds (US $17.28 million). However, singer Björk was "not included" in the sale. The notice read Located in the mid-Atlantic ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland will provide the winning bidder with — a habitable environment, Icelandic Horses and admittedly a somewhat sketchy financial situation. Bidders' questions included: "Do you offer volcano/earthquake insurance?"

In November 2008, a Swedish man put a digitally hand-drawn picture of a 7-legged spider onto eBay. The picture stemmed from the email of an Adelaide man, who owed a utility company $233.95. Instead of paying the money back, he drew them a picture of a 7-legged spider, which he valued at $233.95. On eBay, the bidding price started at $233.95, and it was finally sold at US$10,000. Both the e-mail exchange and the picture have become internet hits.

In 2003, New Zealand internet activist Bruce Simpson constructed a cruise missile with parts purchased from eBay and other online stores.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=68919

Week Eight Exercises

Online Auctions

Question One

eBay's business model, is to put people in contact with one another, rather than selling products itself, to be in the business of connecting people — not selling products to them. Rather, they've created a person-to-person marketplace on the Internet

Every time there’s a sale, eBay takes a cut of the action. As a result, eBay’s market value is now worth more than Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Sears, and Toys ‘R Us combined. “It was an entirely new idea that took advantage of the Net," says Whitman. “There’s no land-based analog for eBay. We hold no inventory, we ship no product.” . http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/30/60II/main527542.shtml

eBay generates revenue from a number of fees. The eBay fee system is quite complex; there are fees to list a product and fees when the product sells, plus several optional fees, all based on various factors and scales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay

The lure of a bargain, combined with the excitement of a Las Vegas gamble, is what brings in millions of Internet customers. The loyalty and enthusiasm of devoted eBay users all over the country is what has helped build eBay into the powerhouse it is today. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/30/60II/main527542.shtml

eBay can attribute most of its success to the fact that they have very low overheads, whilst continuing to rake in large amounts of revenue. eBay does not require a lot of operational costs, as it is purely a buyers/sellers introduction service.


Question Two

This question seems to be a trick question, because if you look at the revenue raised by these companies, you notice that Amazon actually raised more than double the revenue of eBay last year, and Yahoo dragged in a very tidy $7,208,500,000 US in revenue last year. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/snapshots/10867.html

If that is not successful, I don’t want to succeed!

However, I guess the usual cornerstone measurement of success is profit, and on this side of things eBay has the other two licked. This is as I mentioned above, due to the ability of eBay to maintain low overheads to maximise profits on revenue generated.


Question Three

eBay has implemented many tools and information for buyers and sellers to educate themselves about the best way to conduct themselves during an auction. For example, all eBay buyers and sellers are evaluated by the peers they do business with, so everyone has a ranking and anyone can read their feedback trail. If there are problems, eBay has a section of its Web site called Security Center where members can lodge complaints and bring eBay in as a mediator. http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/2192/online_auction_providers_grapple_fraud?fp=2&fpid=1

Legitimate auctions pulled quite regularly and, although it is frustrating, it should make buyers more confident when they purchase items sold through drop of stores. eBay simply can't police all auctions and so the big sellers accounts get micro-managed while the little seller can put up a listing for a conterfeit item and not get caught. http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2007/5/1179681903.html

NORWALK, Calif. -- One of eBay Inc.'s official tenets is that "people are basically good." George Fawrup wants to find the eBay users who are altogether bad.
For the last 2½ years, Mr. Fawrup, a veteran California police detective, has been battling one of the Internet era's signature crimes: online-auction fraud. Most of the fraudsters use eBay, the Internet's biggest auction site, and they get craftier by the year. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB109148425481880978-IdjgYNplaB3opuuZ3qGcKiEm4.html

By the research I have done online, there seems to be literally 1000’s of people who are less than impressed by the implementation of “Fraud Filter’s” on eBay. These people target their anger mostly toward Rob Chesnut, Vice President of eBay's Trust & Safety Department.

Police crack eBay scam
"POLICE have cracked a Ballarat eBay fraud scam which netted more than $12,000 in three months.
Unsuspecting eBay users from all parts of Australia were lured into paying for Nokia mobile phones they were never going to receive.
A Ballarat man has been jailed for six months over his part in the scam.
eBay - a website where people bid online for items - covers users for losses when their auctions run the full term." http://ebay-fraud.blogspot.com/


Question Four

eBay are trying to make people who use their facilities feel like they are part of a community, as opposed to being on one side of the fence or the other, and pigeon-holing people as either sellers or buyers. This way people who use the site do not just view themselves in one light, and may be more inclined to participate in both sides of the transactional process. eBay can benefit from this by generating more sales and activity on their site.


Question Five

A brand name vendor has the opportunity to reach a huge market on an online auction site such as eBay. One that would otherwise, be mostly unattainable. If the brand name vendors had their own versions of eBay, then they would simply become a competitor and become lost in the crowd.
Also, the brand name vendors would only have people visit their site that are specifically searching for their product. On eBay the brand name vendors can obtain exposure to customers that may just be browsing, and then take an interest in their product. A sort of passing trade, if you will.

Week Seven Exercises

Digital Automata

Question One

Cybertwin could possibly used to answer basic questions, as in most good webpages “FAQ” sections. However, it seems pretty hard to accept that a Cybertwin could stand alone to answer all questions that may be asked of it. Also, it is not exactly practical to train a Cybertwin or Machine to answer your course questions, as you would have to program it to give the right answers, and this would be more time-consuming than actually doing the course work yourself. For basic menial tasks or questions, it could become quite a useful tool, as far as not having to use more valuable human time with these lesser tasks.


Question Two

The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machine's ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
The Chinese Room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle (1980), which attempts to show that a symbol-processing machine like a computer can never be properly described as having a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may behave.Searle argues that without "understanding" (what philosophers call "intentionality"), we cannot describe what the machine is doing as "thinking". Because it does not think, it does not have a "mind" in anything like the normal sense of the word, according to Searle. Therefore, he concludes, "strong AI" is mistaken.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Room


Question Three

As I mentioned earlier Virtual Agents can be utilized for customer service over the Web, in a “FAQ” capacity. Also, with a huge amount of programming, the virtual agent would be able to appease a large amount of customer questions, even to the point of not needing a customer service team, but only a customer service person, to maintain the “knowledge” of the virtual agent.However, there is still the Human element, which seems to be a variable that even human’s struggle to understand. Therefore, you can almost guarantee that human’s will conceive a question or request that the virtual agent, will not understand. Also, the virtual agent still relies on human input to ensure that it stays current in its “intelligence”.