Jerk of the Week

[filkertom]

Remember when that Velvet Underground record went for $155,401 last week on eBay? Fake bid.

"Seriously, I can barely afford gas for my car to get to work...."

Then DON'T FUCKING BID, YA MORON! What, do you tell the cashier at the grocery "Just kidding" when she gives you the total?

And I don't want to hear that he did it "for attention" or something. It was an asinine, pointless thing to do, and he's lucky the seller doesn't want to demand he make good on the bid, as is his legal right. Not to mention all the people who did bid in good faith, who got bushwhacked by Jerkface's cutesy prank.

Gaaaaaaah.

Comments

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

How does doing it for attention make him any less of an ass?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

It might be said by some who want to excuse him, who want to say he needs help of some sort. Yeah, he needs to be helped away from the computer.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Who DOESN'T need help?

There are ways of asking for help that don't involve being a complete and utter dick.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

There are? Fuck, man. NOW you tell me...

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

[Pat, pat]

There, there... Here, have a Mallomar!

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

The attentionwhore can either come up with the bucks, or get escorted out of Ebay and paypal for life! Make an example of the twit.

I wonder how much he'll really be able to get for that record.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

The thing is, it ain't worth the trouble and expense to nail his ass. What, they're gonna pay a lawyer to get a $155,000 judgment against him, that they'll never, ever be able to collect 'cause he's a turnip?

Banned from ebay, though, I can go for. I reckon he's gonna be pretty famous because of this, and a lotta people won't be eager to have his bids "count" on future auctions.

[giza.livejournal.com]

But said judgment will go on his credit report, and basically trash his credit rating.

Plus, if he tries to make any money off of his notoriety, anyone with an outstanding judgment against him will have a claim on the money that he makes, and could potentially garnish his income.

[jonnorthwood.livejournal.com]

Were it me, I'd sue the schmuck for the full amount plus court fees.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

plus reposting time & costs.

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Nah, the procedure is simple - top bidder renigs, it goes to second bidder for their high bid.

thing is, it screws up the end-of-bid poaching something fierce.

[solarbird]

And never get a nickel, of course. And be out your court costs until he pays up, which will be approximately never.

[ddrussianinja.livejournal.com]

That guy's an asshole.

On a completely unrelated topic, had you heard about the UCLA Library Taser Incident? It happened a month ago, but I hadn't heard about it until yesterday. I figured it would have been the sort of thing you would have mentioned, cause it's pretty outrageous, so I looked through your archives to see if you had posted something about it and I just missed it, but I guess that wasn't the case. If you haven't heard about it, look it up. There's a Wikipedia article about it and a video of some of the incident on YouTube. Basically, an Iranian-American student refused to show his ID to a cop at the UCLA Library because he thought he was being singled out because of racial profiling. In the end, he got tasered about 5 times.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

You forgot that they tasered him because he didn't get up and leave after being tasered the first time.....

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

...I hope that was a joke, because it's fairly clear that he was INCAPABLE of getting up after being tasered the first time. At least in the window they provided him before tasering him again.

And yeah. Even when I later regretted it (I've gone overboard on one or two auctions in my time, I'll admit), I have never, ever welshed on an eBay win. Don't bid more than you're honestly prepared to spend, ever, for any reason and especially not 'for the attention'. eBay/Paypal should throw the book at that ass.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, no, it wasn't a joke. There was a thread on this over at the JACK forums....
That fellow wants banning at least.

heh, I've a few acetate recordings....
I bought a pile once off a barrow where this sweet was bending them to make the acetate flake off (as you do)... They had a gunk on them which I think/hope was an industrial soap, it washed off OK but I had an industrial headache afterwards....
So, what were they? off air recordings of a National Programme broadcast (hence BBC pre-war) of the Rubayyat of Omar Khyyam (sp?). Incomplete pair of sets of the same programme.

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of eBay after the Playstation 3 launch. The majority of the damn things were being tossed onto eBay as soon as they were purchased, and a lot of them were given fake bids of amounts like $100,000. What's the point of that, I ask you?

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Well, for the bid to end up with it there, there had to be a real beid somewhat under that bid. It's the nature of eBay's "bid up to X" system.

And, well, the secondary bidder will get it at just over the third highest bidder's maximum.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Not to excuse the schmuck at all, but eBay is stupid for accepting six figure bids without verifying that the bidder is a real person who really commands that kind of money. (And if there was special stuff triggered for a bid that high, both verifying the person and confirming, hopefully with actual human intervention (at least a phone call), that they're really good for that much and really mean it, the seller should totally sue.)

[poltr1]

The guy gets my vote for "Idiot of the Week".

I'm with wizwom on this -- suing the smeghead would probably cost more than what they'll get out of him. And the next highest bidder becomes the winner.

How do the auction houses (Sotheby's, Christie's) handle bidders who renege?

Part of me would like to see criminal charges -- a misdemeanor would be fine -- filed against the fraudulent bidder. And another part would like to give him a well-deserved boot to the head.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

"You are lucky, Ed Gruberman. Few novices experience so much of Tai Kwon Leep so soon."

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I often disagree with you (we're on totally different parts of the political spectrum) but this time I'm 110% behind you. What. A. MAROON!

I've been ebaying for years and years (always buying) and I have a 100% positive feedback record. This is because I treat Ebay seriously and not as a toy, and don't make bids I'm not willing to make good on. I never, ever bid more than I'm willing to spend.

Here's hoping that this jerk's reputation is permanently damaged---he deserves it.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Exactly. eBay functions on trust. Fake bids at any level, let alone this level, are Just Wrong, and anyone who thinks they're cute or clever or whatever at doing this kind of stuff should be smacked down.

[mstrhypno.livejournal.com]

Y'know, the guy who comes up with the synthetic hormone that replicates the ones humans secrete when they GET ATTENTION is going to SAVE THE WORLD.

Because then, no one will ever want FOR attention, ever again!

Of course, it will immediately become an illegal drug, sold ONLY on the black market and people will be running around looking for their "attention fixes" even more than they do now.

And underground centers for the distribution of this drug will open up all over the world and they will call these places by diferent names, like "comedy clubs" and "coffee houses" and "open mic nights" and the lowest of the low - "Karaoke bars!" Where people will have to perform demeaning stunts to GET their fix of this attention hormone or go into withdrawal, called an attention deficit and they will become disorderly!

Oh GOD, I need some sleep!

Lee

[rook543.livejournal.com]

Now Tom. We all know your still sore at the fake $300,000 bid for that cd of "Debasement Tapes"...

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

You know, Heinlein said it best: "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Although I think even Heinlein might be just a little taken aback by this goofball.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Or he might look at his description of "The Crazy Years," and think, "I wasn't making a suggestion..."

[mstrhypno.livejournal.com]

Father Robert would NOT have been surprised at all, unless it would have been along the lines of "What took it so long for this to happen?

Having known the man...

Lee

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I'll take your word for it. Although I suppose if one adds "...I was sending a warning." to my comment, it might more closely resemble something Heinlein would think.