But he became suspicious when it emerged the seller came from his home town. It proved to be the same camera.

Police said on Thursday they were questioning the 34-year-old vendor who, a statement said, "claims he got the camera at a flea market, but was also offering other cameras on the Internet".

Research from eBay shows Australians received at least one Christmas present each that they simply don't want. Angie Cursley, of eBay Australia said that a lot of those unwanted gifts have already been posted on eBay for "recycling".

Unwanted gifts don't just include socks and jocks or useless items such as electric ice-shavers. The top ten unwanted Christmas gifts on eBay include: cosmetics, clothing, ice cream makers, best selling novels, blenders, ties, hand held mixers, CDs, Manchester and DVDs.

With an influx of brand new items for auction - or for sale by fixed price - flooding eBay after Christmas, eBay is the easy place to buy any one of 60 million great value items ranging from cars to computers, furniture to fashion and sporting goods to shoes.

Anthony Scott Clark, 21, pleaded guilty to intentionally damaging a protected computer, a crime with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to twice any losses incurred, according to the U.S. Attorney for the northern district of California.

In July and August 2003, Clark and accomplices infected about 20,000 computers with a worm, a type of malicious program that allowed them to direct the machines to visit eBay.com, overwhelming the popular Web site, the attorney's office said.

EBay spokesman Chris Donlay declined to say what kind of damage the attacks caused, but welcomed news of the plea.

"We take the protection of our Web site and our community of users very seriously and we think this case will send a pretty clear message that we will pursue anyone who attempts to do this kind of thing," Donlay said.

Luke Macaulay, a spokesman a the attorney's office, said damages were estimated to be between "tens of thousands and millions" of dollars, and that a judge would decide on the amount during Clark's sentencing hearing in April 2006.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

The keyboard is Rhoda Barmack's main link to her home in Scotland.

"It's the only way we can keep in touch with family. I can phone, but it is easier with e-mail," said Barmack.

But she also knows the window to the world opens her up to criminals – the kind of criminals that send bogus email messages.

"Just ignore it. No way I would respond to it in any way," said Barmack.

One of the new scams is just the latest in a string of e-mail scams aimed at eBay users.

"They can make it look like it's coming from eBay," said computer expert Harry Ponfil.

Ponfil showed us how it works.

"They are trying to get your information, trying to get you caught up somehow in the scam," said Ponfil.

The e-mail tells you to click a link and enter your user name and password.

"If they can get that they can wipe out my account," said Ponfil.

Ponfil and his business partner Tim Franks help us track down the source of this e-mail.

The web site is already gone. Ponfil says that proves it was a fake.

When it looks so real, how can a computer novice know it's a scam?

Ponfil say the first clue is that you got the e-mail at all.

"If eBay wants to get a hold of you, it will pop up when you sign in there," said Ponfil.

The company will never send you an unsolicited e-mail asking for private information like your user name or password.

If you get one, just get rid of it.

"Really the best thing to do is to keep hitting delete, delete, delete, delete. Just get rid of everything," said Ponfil.

But if you do have questions about one of the e-mails, Ponfil says just ask. You can go on to eBay and experts there can help you figure out if it's real or fake.

If you feel like you have already been scammed, contact eBay to put a hold on your account and help you figure what if any money has been taken from you.

© 2005 by NBC2 NEWS. All rights reserved.

The seller, Alisher71, told him it would be mailed out December 12th.  When Cox checked the auction site a couple days ago, he found out the bad news. 

"There were hundreds of negative feedback postings," Cox says. "I soon figured out that this was a scam."

Cox is believed to be one of hundreds of victims in what could become the largest case of fraud in eBay history.  Authorities in Florida say Alisher Mardonov and Shahnoza Khakimova have fled their home near Naples. They're believed to have more than $40,000 in cash from electronics they auctioned on eBay but never mailed.  The couple is originally from Uzbekistan.

Cox and the other victims are organizing.  They've started an online petition in hopes of convincing eBay to reimburse them.  They feel the auction site didn't heed "red flags" about the seller that could have kept them from losing their money. 

In the meantime, Cox has some last minute Christmas shopping to do for his girlfriend.  "I'll find something, though it probably won't be from eBay."

An eBay shopper from New York paid more than $600 for a photograph of an Xbox, thinking it was the real thing.

New York media reported that the shopper, who believed she was actually purchasing the real thing as a holiday gift, cried when she received a piece of paper instead of a gaming console. It's not the first time a scammer has capitalized on the shortage of the prized game consoles through the online auction site.

Another buyer paid more than $800, according to gizmodo earlier this month. And, it looks like the scam has crossed the pond, where a London buyer reportedly paid £470.

One eBay offer showed an image and had the words "photo of picture of Xbox" beneath it. The New York shopper told reporters that she followed up with an email and the respondent claimed it was a typo. She then believed she would receive an actual Xbox.

eBay did not immediately respond to inquiries about the matter. The company has been removing Xbox scam listings when it determines the descriptions are misleading or deceptive.

That includes listings for the box holding the game console instead of the actual Xbox.

Original watercolor paintings by Adolf Hitler are going for a few thousand euros (dollars) on the Austrian page of the auction website eBay, press reports said Wednesday.

A painting titled "Muenchen," (Munich) bearing the signature of the former Nazi dictator and described by the seller as a "rarity", was put up for auction on Monday at an asking price of 2,100 euros (2,495 dollars) on eBay.at.

Another watercolor by Hitler, titled "Bad Gastein," received at least 25 bids before selling for more than 4,500 euros (5,340 dollars) on Tuesday, according to the daily Der Standard.

Austrian-born Hitler famously had ambitions to become an artist and was turned down by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, before leading the Nazi Party to power in Germany in 1933.

His production of paintings and sketches was prolific but experts see little artistic merit in them and major auction-houses shy away from them because of their author's bloodstained career.

The dog says "arf." The duck says "quack." The cow? Well, we all know what the cow does.

But they don't do it on eBay. The e-commerce juggernaut nixed plans to reverse its ban on live animal trade.

Led by Chief Executive Meg Whitman, the online auctioneer has long made verboten the sale of live animals except fish and snails, just as it won't allow trade in human body parts, KKK memorabilia or armed ammunition. The Yahoo auction site has similar restrictions in place.

However, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said that soaring sales of pet supplies had prompted the firm to reconsider its policy. The auction portal had tentative plans to craft a separate classifieds category, featuring free ads from animal shelters and paid ads from breeders.

At this juncture, one muses on the company's connection to Craigslist, the nearly-anything-goes online classified-ad service. EBay bought a 25% stake in the latter; has the freewheeling culture pervaded Whitman's firm by osmosis?

That, however, is a philosophical point--and now a moot one. Apparently, users were worried the listings would encourage the proliferation of so-called puppy mills, where animals are often bred in unsanitary and even cruel conditions. Such dissenters pointed out that it might be impossible to differentiate between legitimate animal shelters and hellish breeding grounds.

The Associated Press quoted Durzy as saying that, "The [user] feedback was pretty overwhelming. ...Farms and for-profit commercial breeders wasn't something that they wanted to see."

So eBay's policy stands and animal lovers think that's the cat's meow.

Forbes

Britney Spears is furious after learning photos from her 2004 honeymoon with Kevin Federline are being sold on auction website eBay.com.

On Tuesday, a fellow holidaymaker from Vancouver, Canada, offered never seen photos of Britney and Kevin on the paradise isle, with a starting bid of $3,000. 

The seller, named GIOVANNYS008, promises, Very private photos of Britney and Kevin Federline on their honeymoon in Fiji. A true must have for Britney and Kevin fans. No photo copies, 80 real pics on CD, and includes a watermarked sample snap of the happy couple.

By Alorie Gilbert
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

eBay has dropped plans to facilitate sales and adoptions of live pets on its site and may instead form a partnership with a pet adoption site after thousands of eBay members attacked the announced move.

The online auction company posted a notice on its discussion board on Friday asking members to weigh in on the plan. The notice said eBay planned to launch a live pets classified service early next year that would allow people to advertise animals for sale for a listing fee. The service would not be "transactional," meaning eBay would not take part in actual sales or permit bidding, the notice said.

The plan touched off a virtual uproar on the discussion board, with more than 3,000 responses. Most people posting messages opposed the move, saying the sale and adoption of pets over the Internet is generally a bad idea.

"I would sure hate to have to start boycotting eBay as I have enjoyed my auctions with the service, but that is exactly what will happen if they start listing dogs for sale," one discussion board member, Linda, wrote. "I'm sure that legions of animal lovers would follow suit. Don't do it--too many abuses are already being made possible by the Internet."

Critics of eBay's plan worried that it would help support irresponsible breeders, or "puppy mills," that treat animals poorly. And without meeting animals before purchasing them, pet owners may end up with problem animals, which can lead to abandonment, said Karin Jaffie, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco SPCA, a pet adoption group.

Others fear that the Internet lets unscrupulous buyers skirt the screening process used at many shelters. Screening is designed to save animals from gruesome fates, such as being used as bait in dog fights or as test subjects in a research lab.

These concerns led eBay to scrap plans on Monday for enabling pet sales, but the company said pet adoption listings were still a possibility. Now, the company is backing away from that too.

"While we had hoped to be able to find common ground on the issue of facilitating local shelter adoptions on eBay.com, it appears that sentiment among our members is strongly going the other way," Lori Pretzer, pet supplies category manager for eBay, wrote in a note to eBay members. "In short, the dominant point of view we've heard is that you do not want pet listings--whether for adoption from shelters or from commercial breeders--on eBay.com. Consequently, we will not pursue the idea further."

Instead, eBay is discussing a partnership with PetFinder, an online listing service for pet adoptions through local shelters, Pretzer said.

The Web appears to be an ever more popular place to shop for pets. Pets are the fastest-growing category on LiveDeal.com, a free local classifieds site. The company said last week that "dogs" and "puppies" are the two most searched terms on its site. Craigslist, an online listing service partially owned by eBay, also allows pet ads.

The move aims to compete with rival taobao.com, a subsidiary of Jack Ma's Alibaba.com Inc, which has promised free service until 2008.

EBay China said it will stop charging sellers for establishing online shops but will still charge users for listing products in the shops and collect a commission on completed deals.

The Website previously charged users 35 to 500 yuan (US$62) a month for each online shop and 0.20 yuan for each product displayed.

"The change aims to improve customer loyalty," said Lillian Liu, eBay China's spokeswoman. "The move will encourage more people to open stores on eBay's platform."

By the end of the third quarter, more than 10,000 cyber stores had been opened on eBay China, mainly selling clothes, cosmetics and consumer electronics, according to Liu, who declined to reveal the trade volume.

Taobao.com said yesterday it will attract about 1 million shop owners to its Website, up from the current 250,000.

At the end of the third quarter, eBay's registered member numbered 15.1 million against taobao's 12 million.

(Source: Shanghai Daily)

BY SELIM ALGAR and STEFANIE COHEN

A pair of Banana Republic employees were busted for grand larceny yesterday after they stole more than $50,000 worth of clothing, and attempted to sell it on eBay, authorities said.

Nassau County cops said Kilma Robinson, 34, of Piscataway, N.J., and Michael Gonzales, 23, of Elmont, had been clerks at the Roosevelt Field Mall location since April.

The duo, cops said, stuffed garbage bags and boxes with clothing and accessories and put them near the trash in the store's back room.

They allegedly would retrieve the booty later, dump it in their cars...

All of the proceeds from the auction will benefit Habitat for Humanity's Hurricane Katrina and Rita relief efforts. The LEGO Company will also pay for all shipping costs.

With the enormous model, the sale includes: a framed certificate of authenticity, signed by George Lucas and the LEGO model builder who designed and built it; "functional elements;" and "secret treasures."

The model is 97 inches long and 47 inches wide, weighs over 150 pounds and was created using over 35,000 pieces. It reportedly took over 450 hours to construct.

The LEGO Republic Attack Cruiser model was designed by LEGO Master Builder Erik Varszegi exclusively for display at the Star Wars Celebration III, the San Diego Comic-Con, LEGOLAND California and several other national LEGO events to promote the final episode in the Star Wars saga. The site also has some great pictures of the model.)

Bidding on item, which opened at $2,500 on Wednesday, had risen to $20,101 by mid-afternoon today (Friday) and has 8 days left in its run. - Shannon Nolley

By Geoff Duncan
Staff Writer, Designtechnica News

Even as eBay touts celebrities using its service this holiday season, the company is facing growing online fraud and complaints of foot dragging.

The end-of-year holidays are important for Internet retailers, and eBay definitely wants access to the spending frenzy as it issues press releases touting celebrities' successful purchases, including consumer electronics grabs by Jessica Simpson, Sela Ward, and Eva Longoria.

However, a less pleasant side of eBay is emerging: strong increases in hijacked member accounts, auction fraud, and counterfeit goods being sold over the service. According to the BBC, eBay's director of trust and safety Gareth Griffiths admitted to "extreme growth" in the number of account hijacking and fraud incidents during 2005, and another company spokesperson refused to deny that the number of compromised and hijacked accounts might number in the tens of thousands.

Naturally enough, the BBC's reporting focuses on the U.K., reporting that eBay is drawing the ire of both brand manufacturers and law enforcement officials for the amount of fraud on the site and the amount of time eBay takes to respond to requests for information or reports of criminal activity. For instance, Adidas told the BBC up to 40 percent of 12,000 auctions for its goods the company monitored were selling counterfeit items, and clothing brand Ben Sherman said eBay took five days to close a series of counterfeit auctions, by which time many of the items had been sold. Law enforcement officials have reportedly characterize eBay's slow response times as "obstructive;" North Yorkshire Trading Standards claimed eBay took two months to provide information on suspects.

Some of the problems faced by eBay are created by criminal enterprises and fraudsters, rather than by eBay itself. So called "phishing" schemes trick eBay members into revealing their account information, and eBay in part characterizes the growing problem as external to the site and the fault of its users for responding to schemes and not maintaining up to date security software.

"Phishing" attempts usually take place via email purporting to be from eBay, requiring users to update their account details. However, the links embedded in the message take the user to a site controlled by the fraudsters, who collect the requested account information and use it to take over the user's legitimate eBay account, or sell the information to those who will. (And these phishing email messages are very common: my personal spam folder contains more than 600 such messages I've received since July, 2005 and those are just the ones the spam filtering on the mail servers didn't block outright.) These people then use hijacked accounts to sell counterfeit materials or commit other forms of online fraud. Other legitimate eBay account holders may have their account information compromised by keystroke monitoring programs or other spyware on their computers which relay the details back to fraudsters. Still other accounts may be accessed fraudulently because of weak, easily guessed passwords.

For its part, while admitting fraud problems are increasing, eBay claims to have food relationships with major retail brands and describes law enforcement as very satisfied with the company's level of cooperation. eBay maintains an online security center with tips on how to protect information and accounts, along with means to report fraudulent auctions, suspected scams, and spoof email messages. The security center also features a members forum where security issues and the BBC's reporting can be discussed.

A quarter of Britons have inherited things they don't want - and one in 10 have sold them on eBay, a survey has revealed.

Almost half (46%) of the 26% who ended up with unwelcome bequests had sold them on to make a profit, the research for Scottish Widows found.

Some 9% had succumbed to the eBay obsession and sold their family's treasured items on the auction site. And 21% of unwanted objects ended up in the rubbish heap.

The most commonly inherited items are jewellery (37%).

Some 40% of women would like their grandmother or mother's engagement ring. But only 13% of men would want to inherit a ring to pass on to their current or future wife.

While more than 13 million people (31%) have their heart set on a specific item they want to inherit, 31% admit to having items they would rather not receive.

Anne Young, tax expert at Scottish Widows, said: "A lot of people already have in their minds what they want to inherit but only half the nation has had a conversation to agree who inherits what.

"Families need to be more open and honest with each other about the items they really do want to inherit. After all, one man's junk is another man's treasure."

© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2005, All Rights Reserved.

Looking for that perfect Christmas gift for that Britney fan?  Look no further than eBay.
 
Honeymoon pictures for sale?

A seller on the online auction site claims they have some "very private photos of Britney and Kevin Federline on their honeymoon in Fiji.  A true must have for Britney and Kevin fans.  No photo copies, 80 real pics on CD."

Oh my.  

For three grand I'm guessing someone is going to want a Britney Spears topless photo in there somewhere.

City Rag prints what everyone else is thinking.  Do you think Kevin's looking for some fast cash?

The auction site cites that at this writing that there is over 5 days left for you to get at least three grand together and bid on the item. 

Zero bids have been received so far.

The unanswered questions:  Is Britney Spears nude in any of the pictures and will they be worth even more if the newly happy couple splits.

See the auction here.

In recent years, air passengers in the United States have surrendered more than seven million items, such as small knives and scissors, to Transportation Security Administration officials, who are trying to keep terrorists from bringing dangerous items on board airplanes.  Some of these items are showing up for sale to the highest bidder, on the auction website eBay.

Sharp objects and some tools have been considered too dangerous for passengers to carry with them onto airplanes, but where does the stuff go after U.S. officials seize it?

Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Andrea McCauley says Transportation Security Administration officials are only responsible for taking knives and scissors away from passengers. 

"Well, once an individual surrenders an item to the TSA, it becomes TSA property," she said.  "At that point, we do turn it over to our contractors, which we have hired state by state, simply because we cannot manage the overwhelming amount of items surrendered at the checkpoint."

Ms. McCauley says TSA officials deliver seized guns or serious weapons directly to local law enforcement authorities.  But as for the hundreds of thousands of smaller items, she says, contractors can do whatever they want with them. 

She says some vendors have chosen to melt down the items or donate things like scissors to schools.  Other vendors, she added, have decided to sell things like knives, scissors and tools at auctions or on auction websites like eBay.

"We would like to be clear that the TSA itself is not selling those items, but it is managed by the state or the vendor that is chosen by the TSA," she explained.

Ms. McCauley makes a distinction between the vendors, saying most of them represent state governments.  She says the TSA donates the items to those vendors, who are then free to sell the items to the public if the state's guidelines allow it.

The sole private company the TSA works with is SAIC, which has the nationwide contract to, in Ms. McCauley's words, "fill in the gaps" in terms of disposing of the items that don't go to the states.  She says SAIC is paid by the U.S. government, but is contractually prohibited from selling any of the items for profit.

"We have made it very clear that they are not to sell those items on eBay or in any capacity," she added.  "Their contract is strictly to destroy those items and remove those items."

Among the many items for sale on eBay are a three-blade pocket knife, which sold for $7.50, and a lot of 21 pairs of hair-cutting scissors, which sold for more than $30.

Ms. McCauley says the TSA has re-evaluated its list of prohibited items, and after December 22, will allow airplane passengers to once again carry some things, like small scissors and tools that had been prohibited.  

"We spend a lot of our time focusing on those items that will no longer be prohibited at the end of December," she said.  "So, this opportunity will give us the chance to use those resources toward looking at our main threat, which is explosives and other items along those lines."

When asked whether these new rules also will affect the type and number of items that show up for sale in places like eBay, she added "absolutely."

By Debbie McGoldrick

Bob Geldof is furious that Live 8 tickets are being offered for sale on eBay, and he has called for a worldwide boycott of the online auction site, describing it as “an electronic pimp.”

Tickets are already attracting bids of up to $1,500, a figure Geldof says is “sick profiteering.” The Live 8 organizer said he was appalled, and accused the sellers of the tickets of “disgusting greed.”

Clearly happy to be back in the headlines, Bob is in the news almost every day now as he resuscitates his public image with another massive concert for Africa.

“I am sick with this,” said Geldof, making it abundantly clear that he has had enough of those seeking to make big bucks from such a worthy cause.

“It is a disgrace. It is completely against the interests of the poor. The people who are selling these tickets on websites are miserable wretches who are capitalizing on people’s misery.”

He threatened to go to court, but eBay struck back. “The reselling of charity concert tickets is not against the law but as we do not wish to profit from this event, we have offered to make a donation to the Live 8 organizers at least equivalent to the fees we collect from the sale of Live 8 tickets,” a spokesperson said.

Wonder how Geldof feels about the rumor floating around that newly exonerated Michael Jackson will be invited to appear at the Philadelphia Live 8 show.
 
 
 

By ANTHONY FRANCE
and DANIELLE LAWLER

Liverpool star John Arne Riise was last night at the centre of a probe into how a Champions League medal came to be sold on eBay.

The Sun has obtained an amazing video in which a pal of Riise openly discusses selling the gong on the internet — in front of the defender.

Reds chiefs are furious over the sale of the medal, which went to a bidder from Hong Kong.

It was one of 25 given to the Liverpool squad after their historic penalty shoot-out win over AC Milan in the May final.

In the clip passed to a Sun reader in a pub, Riise, 25, is seen having a conversation in a car he is driving with the mystery friend.

The pal is seen kissing the medal which hangs around his neck. He says: “Not many people can say they have done this but I can count myself as lucky enough to say I have a Champions League winners’ medal from Istanbul that this guy won. And here he is.”

He then points the camera at Riise who sticks up two fingers.

The pal kisses the medal several times and continues: “Oh my God, that feels good.” Norwegian star Riise says: “It’s not your girlfriend.”

The man replies: “It f***ing is now and if you like it, check out eBay because that’s where it’s going.”

He then sings: “Champions League you’re having a laugh.”

UEFA have confirmed the medal is genuine. A spokesman told The Sun: “No one outside the club would have been given one of these. We don’t know what happened.

“It may have been a robbery or a player may have sold it.”

A Liverpool insider added: “Everyone is baffled by the sale. A Champions League winning medal is one of the most coveted awards a player can receive. Why anyone would want to sell one is beyond me.”

The Sun revealed last Friday that the medal had been sold on eBay — but it was not known which player might be associated with it.

The club is investigating but was unavailable for comment.

A Charles City man has been charged with defrauding people who were bidding in Internet auctions on eBay.

A federal grand jury indicted David James Martin, 26, on three counts each of mail and wire fraud. The indictment was filed Wednesday and announced Friday.

Martin, who owned and operated Furious Computers of Charles City, has a court appearance scheduled for Dec. 21 in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.
 
The case was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Thornhill said Martin would offer computers and electronic equipment on on-line auctions. He would receive payments from winning bidders but wouldn't send the products and kept the money for himself.

The scheme took place between January and June 2003 through the eBay auction Web site.

Sometimes he completely failed to deliver the promised products, which he said he had in stock or would build, according to court records. Other times, he sent inferior products, records state.

When his customers complained, he would tell them he would refund the money, but he never did records state.

The mail fraud charges stem from three incidents in which he received checks between $1,736 and $11,000 through the mail from people in Myrtle Creek Ore.; Los Gatos, Calif.; and Port Hueneme, Calif.

Wire fraud charges involved amounts between $1,050 and $22,500, records state.

If convicted, Martin faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine

The online auction for Hall of Famer Ron Pierce's donated set of spring/fall colours, goggles, gloves, whip and autographed bobblehead, which will benefit the driver's favourite charities, ended this afternoon with a high bid of $995.19 CAD.

The auction received 35 bids in total. Last year, Pierce's goggles from his victory in the Little Brown Jug fetched $1,939.19 CAD in an eBay auction that received a total of 49 bids. The auction benefited the Standardbred Retirement Fund.

The money raised in this year's auction will benefit the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland, the Standardbred Retirement Foundation and the Harness Horse Youth Foundation

As the newest console from Microsoft, the Xbox 360 continues to sell out of stores across the nation. Buyers are turning to eBay in an effort to get their hands on the latest craze in the video gaming market. In fact, the first week after its launch (November 22nd, 2005 - November 28th, 2005) Xboxs were selling at an unbelievable rate of 1 every 13 seconds during peak times. Based on Terapeak analysis of eBay data, over $23 million worth of Microsoft Xbox 360s were sold in the first week.

The following research was completed using Terapeak's web-based research tool to set price filters on completed transactions of Xbox 360 systems priced greater than $250 and less than $1500. The demand for Xbox was well above the standard with a staggering average of 19 bids per successful listing. In fact, over 586,035 bids were placed on 39,562 systems. The success rate for Xbox 360 systems listed on eBay.com was 78.2%. The average selling price for units sold was $718 per unit.

It is interesting to note that the majority of listings took place primarily between 8AM-12PM PST and in the evening between 2PM-7PM PST. 92% of the listings were auctions and approximately 65% of those transactions were 1-day duration listings. eBay.com Picture Services and Bold features were the most used selling tactics by eBay sellers.

Since the first week demand has dropped to an average of 15 bids per successful listing. The success rate and average price of Xbox 360 auctions have also come down. They are now 75.4% and $702, respectively.

Two men from Middleton have come up with a revolutionary idea to aid people who use a popular auction website.

The businessmen, William Bones and Chris Burton, have invented a way to stop people being outbid on eBay, the popular auction website which has attracted millions of users around the world.

Their idea, which was a bit of fun at first, has taken off and is becoming more and more popular with people who cannot afford to sit at a computer all day waiting for the final bid.

William, who now lives in Chadderton, said: The idea was a simple one originally born from the frustration of eBay fan Chris missing too many auctions, because the auction either ended at an inconvenient time or because he was away from his computer for the crucial last hour of bidding. In a typically cottage industry scenario the idea to 'beat the system' was hatched over a cup of coffee in Chris's kitchen.

William and Chris, from Kingsway, got so fed up of missing auctions that they devised a piece of software which would place their bid for them in the last few seconds of the auction no matter when it ended.

And now they have set up their own website for users who want to beat the system themselves.

William added: We've been surprised by the variety of quirky items which the public seems to be bidding for, plastic toy soldiers, cars, personalised number plates, clothes, antiques, porcelain armadillos, you name it it's in there.

The whole thing started out as a bit of fun. I was in banking before I started this. It just grew and grew and the idea developed and now we are launching it and it is doing quite well.

People can get out bid by someone in the auction because they have other commitments and because they can't stay at the computer all day and this gives them the opportunity to do the things they need to while letting them get the item they wanted from ebay.

For more information about their service visit their website at bidbullet.com.

Tina Curran

A sophisticated phishing attack has proven so successful, it has tricked eBay's own fraud investigations team into endorsing it as legitimate, according to an independent security consultant who reported the attack to eBay.
 
In late November, Richi Jennings received a fraudulent e-mail message containing the subject line "Christmas is Coming on ebay.co.uk." Offering him "great tips for successful Christmas selling," the message directed him to the Web site ebaychristmas.net, which then asked Jennings to enter his eBay user name and password, as well as the name and password for his e-mail account.

Jennings reported the site to eBay on November 25, and four days later he got a note back from the company's investigations team claiming that the e-mail message was, in fact, "an official e-mail message sent to you on behalf of e-Bay."

Jennings was dumfounded. He immediately wrote back to eBay pointing out that the Web site being used was clearly fraudulent, but his e-mail went unanswered.

eBay Changes Tune:

On Monday, an eBay spokesperson confirmed that the e-mail message was indeed part of a fraud, but she could not explain why it had initially been identified as legitimate.

"I don't know the answer to that," said spokesperson Amanda Pires. "I'm assuming right now it was just an error."

From their initial response, it appeared that eBay's investigators did not take his concerns seriously, Jennings said.

"They never actually used the word idiot, but I felt like they were calling me an idiot," he said. He believes that the e-mail message in question bore such a close resemblance to a legitimate eBay message that the company's investigators were simply tricked by the scam.

Pires said that eBay had, in fact, been working to take down the phishing site since November 8, weeks before Jennings even contacted the company.

Both Jennings and eBay agreed that the phony Web site has been set up in such a way that it is extremely difficult to shut it down. The Web site's server software is being hosted on a variety of different PCs that appear to have been taken over by malicious "bot" software. Whenever eBay succeeds in getting one of these servers shut down, a new one pops up to take its place, Pires said.

"This is one of the cleverest [phishing attacks] I've seen in a while," Jennings said.

Antifraud Efforts:

EBay has also been trying to shut down the Web site by working with the Internet registrar that was used to acquire the ebaychristmas.net domain, Pires said. Despite these efforts, however, the site has remained operational.

That registrar, which does business under the name Joker.com, has the power to shut down the scam Web site, Jennings said. "If they were taking their responsibilities seriously, the site would have been shut down weeks ago," he said.

Joker.com did not respond to e-mail requests to comment for this report.

EBay's gaffe shows how hard it has become to keep track of fraudsters, said Rich Miller, an analyst with Internet services vendor Netcraft.

Netcraft, which offers a free antiphishing toolbar of its own, classified more than 8,000 phishing sites in the month of November, Miller said. "It's very had to keep straight what is legitimate and what's not," he said.

As for Richi Jennings, though he doesn't have high regard for eBay's investigators, he's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's possible, he said, that the company was simply overwhelmed with questions about a legitimate e-mail message that closely resembled the scam, and then made the mistake of assuming he was writing about the same thing.

"Hopefully this was a false negative in a sea of correct answers," Jennings said.

The original Hollywood sign sold for $450,400 in an EBay auction that ended Tuesday night, the sign's owner said.
 
Dan Bliss said he hoped to learn the name of the winning bidder today.

Bliss, 35, a West Los Angeles entrepreneur, said he bought the sign two years ago from a man who acquired it in 1978, when the city put up a new sign.

The original sign was built in 1923 to promote a real estate development.

eBayers selling hooky Microsoft products have been pushed off the UK auction site in a recent crack-down.
Between August and October, some 21,000 auctions of Microsoft software were targeted, with Windows XP and Office the main products under suspicion.

And the campaign had a dramatic effect: August saw removing more than 11,000 articles for sale; by October this had dropped to around 5,000.

As for the rogue eBayers, it looks like Microsoft will be burdened with manning its monitoring division for some time to come. \'We\'re seeing 250 items each day on ,\' said Alexander, so there\'s still some way to go. \'We\'re following up on all of the leads coming into us,\' she said.

U2 fever hit Australia yesterday with more than 200,000 tickets for the Irish rock band's Vertigo tour in March being sold within hours.

But the band's local promoter, Michael Coppel, said he was angry after hundreds of tickets for shows in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane appeared on eBay with the bulk of them asking about six times the original price, shortly after they became available through ticket agencies.

"I'm pissed off," Coppel said. "It's unfortunate and it makes it hard for fans who can't go. No fan buys tickets for a show like that and tries to sell them 10 minutes later."

One pair of standard tickets costing $103.50 each for the group's Sydney Telstra Stadium show on March 31 were selling on eBay for $8100 yesterday afternoon. A total of 70,000 tickets for that show sold out in less than an hour.

It was a similar story in Melbourne, with the March 24 concert at Telstra Dome selling out. Some tickets were still available last night for the Auckland, Brisbane and Adelaide legs of the tour.

It is not a criminal offence to scalp tickets on eBay, although civil prosecution as a contract matter might be possible, NSW police said.

Fans who missed out yesterday will get another chance to see the Vertigo show. Because of the unprecedented demand in Sydney and Melbourne, second concerts, on March 25 and April 1, will be announced today.

"I knew there was strong interest in seeing them but I am astonished at the response," Coppel said. "Not all artists are committed to coming to Australia. Few artists do two-year tours any more and there is demand from so many more places for bands to tour, from Seattle to Shanghai."

U2 last toured Australia in 1998 as part of their Popmart world tour. The Vertigo tour began a year ago on the west coast of the US and will visit Japan and then South America before the New Zealand and Australian performances.

So far, U2's concerts have sold out in every city they have played in. The current tour follows on the heels of the band's chart-topping 11th album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

"They are still a great band and they still care, that's what comes across from them," Coppel said.

I'm often asked what the sticking point is that keeps most people from selling online. "What should I sell?" or the ever popular, "What item will make me the most money in the shortest period of time?" are the most popular questions representing barriers to online success. People just don't seem know what to sell.

The answer to the second question is much more complex than the first. To be honest, the lucky individual that finds a hot item and makes a killing with their sales is an extreme rarity. Think about it. How many instant success stories have you ever heard about? It would be nice to think you could be one of them, but the odds of finding that life-changing, magic item are miniscule. There's no slam dunk--no magic key to an "instant" fortune for most of us.

So why not concentrate on finding a group of items that'll give you a steady stream of income over a long period of time? It may be a slower way to riches, but at least you can control your income as your business grows.

To start out, you can easily hone your selling skills by helping your neighbors get rid of their excess stuff. Offer to sell for people in your community (post a flyer at the laundromat or at church) and charge a percentage (plus eBay fees). This way, the profits you make from selling the excess in your neighbors' garages becomes the backing for buying your first "official" merchandise to resell. You'd be surprised how positive your neighbors may react, finding it a blessing if you offer to sell their excess stuff on eBay for them. eBay even backs you in this endeavor with Trading Assistants, experienced eBay sellers who sell your items for you on eBay for a fee. By hiring a Trading Assistant you can take advantage of their selling expertise, save time and effort, and still reap the rewards of selling your item on eBay. Visit the Trading Assistant hub page for more information, including marketing tools and templates at ebay.com/tahub.

Now that you have to actually buy merchandise to sell, you need to consider selling what you know. Did you have a hobby as a teenager? Is there something particular that interests you? For example, if you loved drama in college perhaps you know a lot about Broadway shows and could sell Broadway memorabilia like old Playbills and posters. Did you collect coins? You can get back into what's hot and what's not by starting out bottom-feeding and buying coins from people who want to sell off collections.

If you're coming out of a career, think about selling items that would be of benefit to people with a similar job. Say you were in the nursing profession--weren't there a few items that made your job easier for you? Were there certain things you and your friends just had to have? That's what you should be selling.

Get it? Sell what you know! Sell what interests you. That way you'll have a leg up on the competition who has just randomly picked a group of items to sell. When you sell the same item as your competitors it's your personal experience that'll place you ahead. Your experience allows you to move with the trends far better than someone can who's not an expert in the field.

If you're still at a loss for an idea, look around your house. Check out products you use or you think add something special to your life. Check out the packaging and find out the manufacturer's name. Google them and make contact. Find out how you can sell their item online.

Once you've gathered a few dollars and are ready to go out and buy "wholesale," there are a few steps to complete. Assuming you and your business are ready to go, you have to deal with the tax man. Be sure to file a fictitious name statement, look into local licenses and file for your Federal Employee Identification Number. Once you have that you'll need a Seller's Permit. Use Google to search for your state's sales tax department--that's usually the group that issues a "reseller" or "sellers" permit. This permit is the only way you can buy at true wholesale prices. Legitimate wholesalers won't even let you through the door without producing your seller's permit number.

Check out my website for a listing of Merchandise Marts by clicking here. These are places that have a large group of manufacturers' salesmen whose job it is to sell wholesale merchandise to retailers (that's you). Also, check out the website www.greatrep.com for a list of upcoming trade shows (huge expos where manufacturers sell their latest lines of goods).

Once you've established a selling relationship with a manufacturer or a manufacturer's representative, see if they'll drop ship some of the bulkier or expensive items in their line for you. Try not to start out with a drop shipper since they're basically middlemen marking up merchandise to sell to you. This cuts severely into your profit margin.

Please send me feedback on my website, www.coolebaytools.com, if you've found a unique way to find merchandise for your business. In the meanwhile, have a great holiday selling season!

News Flash
eBay now has a subscription service designed to help inexperienced sellers set online prices and better understand the eBay marketplace. The new service, called eBay Marketplace Research, gives subscribers access to data, charts and graphs to help them understand the demand for items they're planning to sell. Subscribers can view top searches within a category or the entire site to see what buyers are searching for, with the charts providing information on the average bids per item, the number of completed items and more. For less than $10 a month, sellers can follow trends as they play out online, allowing them to adapt their sales strategies immediately.

Marsha Collier, a successful eBay PowerSeller, is Entrepreneur.com's "eBay" columnist as well as the author of the bestselling eBay references, eBay for Dummies, 4th Edition and Starting an eBay Business for Dummies.

Xbox 360 video game consoles were showing up on eBay as pre-orders prior to the Microsoft Xbox 360 launch. How many sold? Over 40,000 Xbox 360 units were sold on eBay.

Xbox 360 has been a hot item on eBay. eBay was the top online retailer this year, pulling in 9.5 million unique visitors on Black Friday alone.

Microsoft Xbox 360 shoppers also found deals and bargains for the Xbox 360 console, but most paid a gem for the unit. Over 40,000 units for the Microsoft Xbox 360 have been sold on eBay so far.

40,000 Xbox 360 video game consoles is nearly 10 percent of the entire U.S. inventory for Xbox 360. However, some units were sold, and then resold for profit on eBay, but we don't know exactly how many of those units are part of the 10 percent figure.

We do know that more than 5,000 Xbox 360 game systems were sold on eBay over the first 24 hours after the November 22nd launch. That's about 3.5 Xbox 360 units sold per minute. On that day, average sold price for the Xbox 360 was $821, with 5,400 available on the site as the Thanksgiving Day holiday approached.

I wonder how many of those 40,000 Xbox 360 customers paid more than $821? Probably many. There one auction with a bidding price of over $6,000 for the Xbox 360. There is no doubt that eBay has become enriched.

No one, as far as is known, has successfully sold his or her soul on eBay but the transaction can only be a matter of time. A quick trawl of news from what is called the eBay community reveals that almost anything can be flogged through an internet auction.

Last week, an Oxford undergraduate offered his dignity on-line and managed to sell this totally unique, one-off item", complete with a certificate of ownership, for.

In America, ready-made meals that the army had been handing out to hurricane victims are already on eBay. Not to be left out, China, the sleeping giant of the new capitalism, has seen babies apparently being offered online at a going price of $3 450 for boys and $1 600 for girls.

The behavioural fallout from this new craze for direct buying and selling has been profound. "I'd rather be bidding than dating," an enthusiast of the website told one newspaper. Another woman revealed that buying on the internet was taking over her life, that she had to leave the table during dinner parties in order to make a bid, but felt powerless to do anything about it.  

What am I going to bid? is one of the first things I think about when I wake up, she said.

Something rather peculiar is going on here, and it is not just caused by greed or the love of a bargain. Those hooked on eBay confess to buying things even when they are not needed, and go on chat-lines to swap exciting stories about their latest deals.

The well-oiled propaganda machine that supports eBay suggests that trading online provides an escape from the wage-slavery of a job, and there are plenty of stories about people earning a good living from it. But, clearly, the obsession is more than a matter of money. The business of bidding, of going to the Post Office to buy a postal order, sending and receiving parcels from around the world, seems to offer excitement to the bored, companionship to the lonely and even psychological succour to the needy.

Zippos, hair spray, nail scissors and Swiss Army knives are just some of the contraband routinely banned from airplanes by security screeners.

Once it was confiscated, the likelihood of recovering your grandfather's favorite pocket knife when you arrived back home wasn't good.

There's still no guarantee, of course, but if you're particularly attached to those nail scissors, you might try bidding at eBay. Typically, confiscated items end up at the state's Surplus Property Office. According to

Lin Wright, Surplus Property program director, a Swiss Army knife or item of value will be sorted, and often sold on eBay, the online auction house.

Bulk items, such as boxes of 100 scissors, might go for $20. The money goes to fund the Surplus Property Office or back into state coffers.

But there might be fewer items up for bid now that the Transportation Security Administration has announced plans to allow some previously restricted sharp items onto airline carry-on bags.

According to the TSA, with the advent of heavily reinforced cockpit doors, these items no longer pose much of a threat, and security personnel need to focus more closely on the search for explosives.

Debra Engel, the TSA director for Charleston International Airport, said the plan has two key changes that would allow scissors with blades less than four inches long to be carried, along with pliers and screwdrivers that are less than seven inches long. Previously, she said, scissors could not be brought on board unless they were rounded, and pliers and screwdrivers were banned. The new plan still will completely restrict any knife, saw, sharp-edged device, hammer or potential bludgeoning weapon.

Of 3,000 passengers per day in Charleston, Engel said, 30 to 40 items, such as knives and scissors, and more than 70 combustibles, such as lighters and hair spray, were surrendered.

We turn over a tremendous number of Zippo lighters, she said,  and those are very expensive. It's amazing to me because they've been banned for over six months.

I was working at a checkpoint on Sunday night and some people came in with two and three lighters. I'd joke, 'How many lighters does it take to light a cigarette?'

Wright was careful to point out that sometimes officers from other states will end up with an airport's goods.

We've had people here in Columbia, say, I had to turn in the knife my father gave me,' ' he said. 'We'll look, but there's no guarantee we even get it.

Multiple copies of an exclusive 2006 calendar featuring photographs of scantily clad stars including Jennifer Lopez and Kate Moss have been leaked for sale on auction website eBay.

Staff at tyre maker Pirelli, the firm behind the VIP calendar, are selling the limited edition item online in order to make some extra cash.

The calendars are collector's items as only 35,000 are printed, and they are reserved for employees, VIPs and elite clients. None are sold to the public.

But the tyre firm is disappointed in its cash-hungry workers.

A spokesman says: "There's nothing to stop employees selling their calendars but it's not something we are totally happy about.

"People are given them as gifts and we hope they would keep them."

The limited edition souvenir has a staggering reserve price of $1700

Recently, eBay made the program and its coveted APIs available, creating a shift for the company and countless numbers of developers new and old.

At the helm of eBay's developer initiatives is Greg Isaacs, director of the eBay Developers Program. Internetnews.com recently had the opportunity to chat with Isaacs about the new free API, its prospects, open source and the future of eBay.

Q: Do you expect that regular eBay affiliates will also now benefit from the free API?

That's actually started to happen. One of the things we've been doing the last six months or so for affiliates is removing the cost barriers to them. A large majority of our most productive and successful affiliates actually do use our API.

We'd like to take the model where you don't have to click on the item anymore and get redirected back to eBay, but you can actually bid on the item directly from the affiliate. That creates in my mind a real paradigm shift of how people will transact with the eBay marketplace without ever actually physically having to go to eBay.com.

Today on the seller side, a lot of our most efficient sellers can run their entire eBay businesses by using third-party applications without having to visit eBay.

That's actually by design why we spend so much time and effort having all these APIs because we want sellers to be efficient and we don't want to get in the way of their processes. So by giving them as many APIs as possible, it allows them to manage their business very efficiently.

Q: Do you expect to see more usage, traction or growth in the open source community in the form of third-party open source apps that make use of the newly freed eBay APIs?

We actually do expect that, and that's one of the reasons why we're helping to motivate developers around the coding challenge that we're having. We wanted to specifically have an open source category so developers could work on projects together.

Codebase.ebay.com is our open source code repository, powered by CollabNet, but it's eBay-branded. Today we have about 15 projects that are open source in nature. So developers can go into Codebase, and they can check in projects they can work on with other developers. We fully support developers doing that and that's one of the many reasons why we're removing fees –- to harness the collective intelligence of the open source community.

Obviously there are brilliant [open source] developers and there are lots of great examples, whether it's Firefox or Linux. We want to make it so that there is an eBay angle here, as well, and that developers are aware of it and can be successful at building open source projects.

Q: Do have any indication of the expected growth rate eBay's API usage will incur now that it's free?

It's actually something we haven't disclosed. If you look historically, today we have 21,000 developers, and that's more than doubled from a year ago. So obviously the fact that we're more open and that we have a pretty attractive economic opportunity for developers, the hope is that the growth rate increases.

Q: Do you expect that the free API will lead to an increase in eBay sniping applications?

Today we will certainly encourage the use of the API for bidding on eBay, but we won't allow sniping through the API.

We've always had a firm belief that orderly bidding through a natural process is a much more satisfying experience than sniping. So while there are certainly applications that scrap that allow you to snipe bidding applications like unwiredbuyer.com

Our focus will be on making sure that those applications are bidding based and not sniping based.

Q: From a competitive point of view, is there anything about the Amazon API that you would like eBay to take advantage of in its APIs?

They've done a nice job, and certainly we take a look and see what the competition is doing. There is nothing specifically about what Amazon is doing that we necessarily want to replicate. I think you can always look at other programs and see what they are doing well and what we should be doing better.

For us the focus has really been on how do you make developers successful and how do you actually give them an economic incentive to be successful. I think if you look not just at Amazon but also at the other programs out there, I encourage you to look at whether a developer can actually commercialize an application or whether it's just for personal use.

For eBay, it has been if you want to commercialize it you can do it, if you want to use it for personal use you can do it, if you want to distribute it as open source you can do that and then how can you make money.

Again for us it's either an affiliate-based model or it's when developers can sell a product. I think if you look at other programs I'm not sure that they've figured out the monetary point of view or at least the commercialized point of view of it.

Q: What's next for the eBay Developers Program?

There are a couple areas of growth. One is around how you enable buyers to search and to buy from beyond the browser. Today we have examples of wireless applications where you can do that. We also have examples where you can be notified on your TV set when it's time to bid.

For those applications, our excitement is around actually making them more pervasive and helping those developers get a foothold in the market.

I think that 2006 and 2007 are really going to be the years where 3G networks and better DVRs will appear where these types of applications can take hold. Creating a new user experience on the buy side, whether you're on the browser or off the browser, is going to be particularly important.

The second one is really around international. So today the U.S. has been leading the way in the Developers Program, and our colleagues in Germany have also done a fabulous job.

But there are other opportunities internationally, whether it's the U.K. or China, where literally given the level of technical talent, building applications can not only be an economic motivator for a lot of these developers, but it can also really change how users experience eBay in the browser or off the browser.

Just in time for the holiday shopping season and interesting move from MS. You can now search MSN Shopping and find items up for auction or for sale on eBay and still get access to many of the refinements available on the actual eBay site.

The MSN Shopping Insider blog reports that items listed on eBay are now directly searchable via MSN Shopping. According to the post, you'll find both auction items and fixed priced items ready for immediate sale.

From the blog post:

Inventory on eBay is constantly changing and in order to bring our consumers the freshest catalog of choices possible, we parse, load, classify and match the tens of millions of eBay items on a daily basis. We have invested in building out our software platform to handle such high churn workloads and have expanded our server infrastructure to efficiently and quickly ingest the inventory available on eBay, along with the catalogs of our existing merchants and aggregators. All told, we sift through hundreds of millions of items every day.

The post goes on to mention that along with the actual items, search refinements such as "auction sort" and the ability to see the number of auctions available for a specific item. The blog post has a screen cap.

Here's another MSN/eBay search. Item details provided on an MSN Shopping page. After clicking on the desired item the searcher is then sent to the specific item entry on the eBay site.

Market research firm Nielsen NetRatings' Holiday eShopping Index saw 15 percent more traffic Monday than on Black Friday, or the day after Thanksgiving, which typically marks the kickoff to the traditional start of retail industry's holiday gift-buying season.

The report showed Cyber Monday traffic drew a combined total unique audience of 27.7 million from people who shopped online both from home and work.

Nielsen//NetRatings, which tracks traffic to more than 100 retail Web sites, said eBay (Research) had 11.7 million unique visitors, followed by Amazon (Research) with 5.6 million on Cyber Monday. Rounding out the top five Web sites were Walmart.com with 3 million unique visitors, Target.com with 2.2 million and Overstock.com with 1.9 million visitors.

Dell.com narrowly missed out on the top five, coming in sixth with 1.88 million.

"Cyber Monday brought a surge of traffic to many online retailers as shoppers returned to work following the holiday weekend ready to tackle their holiday gift lists," Nielsen/NetRatings senior retail analyst Heather Dougherty said in the report late Tuesday.

"Heavy promotional activity will entice shoppers to take advantage of the discounts and free shipping offers that are being offered online," she added.

Separately, comScore Networks reported that non-travel spending on Cyber Monday increased 26 percent to $485 million this year.

But despite the hype over Cyber Monday, the firm said it expects the highest online spending day of the season will come closer to Christmas.

"Black Monday was only the 12th highest online spending day of the 2004 holiday season. Last year, peak sales days actually occurred in mid-December as consumers scrambled to take advantage of late-season discounts and free-shipping offers," Gian Fulgoni, chairman and co-founder of comScore Networks, said in a report.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, including last Thursday through Sunday combined, consumers spent more than $925 million online, an increase of 26 percent over the same period in 2004, the comScore report said.

ComScore forecasts that total holiday online sales, excluding travel, will grow 24 percent over last year to $19 billion during the key November-December shopping months.

Henry Koltys, the fella who bought Jerry Garcia's Nicasio, Calif., mansion, is going to auction off a ton of items that were removed from it during a renovation project. Up for grabs on eBay will be toilets, a dishwasher, stereo cabinets and cupboards.

Given the late Grateful Dead singer-songwriter-guitari st's affection for all things, uh, medicinal, you might want to be extra careful opening those cupboards . . . or letting the kids around them. The eBay auction, which begins Sunday, Dec. 18, is expected to raise an estimated $100,000 for a San Francisco-based organization called the Sophia Foundation, of which Koltys happens to be chairman.

News and wire reports say that the foundation is basically a support group for separated families. But I find it comforting, in a Deadhead sort of way, that when I went to the Web page (sophiafoundation.org), I found a link to something called the foundation's "Choreocosmos School of Cosmic and Sacred Dance." Garcia has been gone since 1995 - he died of a heart attack while in a drug-treatment facility - but his ethos just keeps on truckin'.

BY KRIS AXTMAN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

So you didn't wait three cold days outside an electronics store to be one of the first to fork over $300 for Microsoft's new Xbox 360?

Never fear. eBay is here.

This year's hottest holiday commodity can be found at the online auction site, for those willing to pay triple and quadruple the price.

It's nothing new. Since its inception a decade ago, eBay has become the sure cure for the sold-out blues.

Here you can find everything from those 50-yard-line Rose Bowl tickets to front-row seats to Cher's seemingly endless Farewell Tour.

Typically, the online auction exerts downward pressure on prices because of the increased competition, but occasionally-- when supplies are tight-- it becomes a venue for wild profiteering.

"Yes, there are opportunities to make money. But there are also opportunities to lose money," says David Stewart, professor of marketing and consumer psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "If the supply on eBay exceeds the demand, you may find yourself with an Xbox when you didn't want an Xbox."

At this point, that's not likely. Demand for the new computer gaming console still far exceeds supply, with Houston's Best Buy, for instance, receiving only 145 units before Thanksgiving, and no word on whether another shipment will be in before Christmas.

Limiting supplies is a trick that some companies employ to stir up fervor over a particular product, as was the case with the Cabbage Patch and Tickle-Me-Elmo dolls.

And for those speculators willing to endure long waits at stores to snatch up such goods, the Internet has increased access to buyers. But it has also led to an increase in the number of speculators.

In fact, marketing experts say eBay has actually caused a decline in the value of things such as collectibles-- whether they be Barbie dolls, Elvis paraphernalia, or Pez dispensers-- because the middle man has been cut out of the process.

Last year's must-have UGG boots, for instance, are currently being sold on eBay below the retail price.

While the Internet has greased the wheels of competition, it has also actively involved consumers in the marketing process.

"Consumers are becoming part of the system, taking over functions that marketers used to do," says Michael Solomon, a professor of consumer behavior at Auburn University in Alabama. "They are not just on the receiving end of things anymore."

For instance, renegade websites are popping up that pre-publish stores' sale circulars so shoppers don't have to pay full price. Other websites provide consumers with online coupon codes and rebates.

In the case of eBay, says Solomon, consumers are taking the place of wholesalers. And this year's item is the Xbox 360.

Melinda Kinley, a Houston mother of two, had never heard of the new gaming system until a few days ago when she asked her teenage son, Spencer, what he would like for Christmas.

When he mentioned the Xbox 360, she filed it away for future reference. "I didn't think anything of it until I saw that long line on TV," says this doting mom, who has been known to stand in line for the hottest holiday item. Power Rangers and Pokémons come to mind.

She says she will probably "work real hard" to find her son the new Xbox, but shelling out any more than its retail price is not one of them. "I refuse to give in to that kind of stuff. It's not right," she says.

SIDEBAR- Great Scotts: Charlottesville Stones shirts hard to find

The Rolling Stones merch purveyors may have rolled up their booths, but the memories linger on eBay. Between November 19 and 26, four of the orange "Sweet Virginia" t-shirts were sold at the online auction site at prices ranging from $48.76 to $129.99.

Evidently, the Rolling Stones would like to capture a piece of that action. Responding to eBay profiteering, the band's online store announced November 16 that the out-of-stock Charlottesville shirt was again available.

But by the time we clicked through on November 27, the men's shirt was out of stock again. Whether the $33 item will be replenished again by MusicToday, the Crozet-based company that minds the shop for the Stones, could not be learned by presstime.--Hawes Spencer