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Unemployed Milton man tries to auction his debt off on eBay

By adamg on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 5:59pm

Boston Gal reports on an unemployed engineer who had been selling family photos and thank-you cards to try to wipe out his credit-card debt. eBay's just pulled his page, though.

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Comments

By adamg on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 6:23pm.

I still had the page up from before eBay took it down. Here's an excerpt:

For now, I'll remain anonymous except to winning bidders. This is a very humbling time for me and I'm looking to do everything I can to support my family.

I'm an engineer in the Massachusetts area. I've been supporting my new young family for 3 years now and working many many late nights and weekends of overtime to do this. Well, after "making" it for several years, work has dried up for me. My wife just got a job to help out, and now she is out of work. We have no income right now (as of 1/2009). I just missed my first mortgage payment on our town house, and am afraid we'll miss another as I'm desperately searching for a job. I'm even looking across the country for jobs even if I have to relocate... I'm trying everything I can.

My credit card debt sits at around $22,000 and its growing now because of late fees and penalties. My stock investments are down to $0 so, I can't even rely on the money I put away for investments for the future. My savings is down to $0 just trying to stay afloat for the past 2 months. Buy buying thank yous from me.. you'll be helping support us.

Feel free to contact me for more information about us or what is currently going on.. I'll even add my skype name to chat when I have a second: [REDACTED]

I'm 29 with a college education in Mechanical Engineering, my wife is 26 with a college eduction in Interior Design, and my daughter is 2 years old.

I've made this auction for 2500 items at a starting price of $10 for each. So, if I can get a total number of bidders of 2500 at $10 each, I'll have made enough to cover all debt and fees by the time it's all said and done. I would use buy it now, but I can't for multiple listings.

What you'll receive for this auction? Each winner will get a picture of our family and a thank you card for helping us out in our time of need. So, in reality, that is what you'll get for bidding on this.

Thank you to all bidders and God bless everyone who is going through this type of situation.......

By Michael Pahre on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 9:03pm.

In the Google search entry box, type:

cache:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290294099281

and you'll get Google's most recently cached version of the webpage. Quite useful for catching those who try to cover their trail!

By JohnAKeith on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 10:13pm.

For sure it was ebay that pulled it?

How does it not comply with their standards?

By anon on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 10:55pm.

Yeah, I don't see how it wouldn't have met their standards.

Whit

By Kaz on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 10:45am.

One of eBay's prohibited auctions is charity/fundraising efforts. This was a thinly-veiled attempt at that using the gift cards as a "purchasable item" to skirt the policy. If his listing was less admirable and more shifty (like put a picture of the card reading "Thank you for helping me relieve my debt" but not actually mention it in the listing text) then maybe it would have remained under their radar. Once it started getting discussion in the blogosphere, I imagine it came to their attention pretty quick and squelched it.