EBay's mystery inheritance: legit?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

You can check it out here if you like: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5599463479&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

Here’s the rundown. A super super rich 20 year old is liquidating her inheritance, and selling it in one bulk lot on Ebay. This includes a house, a car, a bank vault with two separate mystery entries, and lots of other stuff.

Now I heard her on the radio on Thursday which is what prompted me to come check this out. I listened to the interview and there were things that just set off warning bells as this being…well…too good to be true and thus, probably not.

Let me list a few of them off:

  1. She claims that she’s just not into material possessions and yet the entire purpose of this scheme is to garner enough money to fund her new lifestyle.

  2. If her true goal is to get money for funding these desires,

  3. Why would her parents go along with this scheme? Their propety is right now on the market at ten cents on the dollar. Let’s say she truly did just want the cash. The family is, by her own admitance, multi-millionaires. Surely there is someone in their employ, or someone they know, who could handle a transaction as large as this garnering the most amount of money possible. But no, she puts it up on EBay. And if she gets, say, $200,000? How long is that going to last her?

  4. Take for instance the bank vault. Her mom hand selected a gift for this kid worth $1000 every single year for the kid’s entire life. And now, she’s willing to sell the entire vault, sight unseen. Isn’t that just about the biggest slap in the face to the mom? Again, why are her parents going along with this?

  5. She wants this money because she finally wants to be independant. What? She’s selling things she’s never earned and doesn’t even own to garner her independence from her parents.

  6. She writes in the listing “For security purposes, photos may or may not be of actual items.” Does this include the house? Is there even one?

  7. And to top it off, her parents aren’t even dead yet. This is her inheritance, not her actual property. What proof do we have that she has the legal right to flat out give it to the winner?

Maybe it’s legit. Really, maybe it is. Maybe she’s bored and rich and doing this for shits and giggles and a little bit of fame. But something about this whole thing seems…off.

What do you all think?

#2

If the auction is legitimate, I want the backstory. The cynical side of me is saying things like “That house is infested with termites and or toxic mold” and “That car is a rattletrap coffin on wheels” though. My “spidey senses” are tingling… I wonder if this will be a big hit to E-bay if it’s fake. Will it bring about E-bay’s downfall if so?

#3

:dubious:

Thats enough to raise my eyebrow sky high.

#4

She mentions a sister. Who is to say the parents won’t change their will give it all to the sister or someone other than the auction person.

If her folks aren’t dead, than it isn’t her stuff.

#5

This looks to be interesting… :dubious:

#6

From a quick glance through other “mystery auctions” it appears that eBay has some kind of rule wherein you cannot really “auction off” something you will not disclose, so the loophole out of it is to include the “mysterious stuff” as a free bonus. (There was a “mystery auction” of a Playtex tampon box, full of money or stuff worth money, but the seller said that as per eBay rules, you are only bidding on the Playtex tampon box and that all the stuff in it is a free bonus.)

For this seller it appears that her loophole is the piece of paper at the top of the auction page.

I sure hope whoever wins this auction will get enough media coverage for the rest of us to find out the whole story.

#7

Has anyone read any news stories about winners of auctions like this one? I wonder how previous ones turned out, even smaller scale ones.

#8

I can’t wait to find out what happens.

#9

I call complete BS on this. It stinks in so many ways. I am willing to bet real money on this act.

#10

Oh yes, let me please bid $100,000 on an undated, unwitnessed, un-notarized piece of paper that fails to specify the exact items that I’ll supposedly be getting, with as already pointed out no guarantees that the seller has title to any of the items or that the seller’s parents won’t otherwise dispose of the property.

#11

oh yes, may I add: 20% within 24 hours of closing or she reserves the right to revoke this. The rest within a week.

And, as our radio station DJs added: a $10,000 car? For a multi-millionaire? What the hell is she doing driving around in a $10,000 car?

#12

Hmmm…could this be a promotional stunt for an upcoming movie?

#13

Some of the stuff she’s included might not be very liquid, but she could probably sell the house easily enough. She says it’s worth $200,000. So if everything else is worth 1.1 million and she gets only 20 cents on the dollar, she’d get over $400,000 (including the house). I would think that would net her more money than this blind auction.

#14

Related to that…

I’ve attended public auctions at storage facilities looking for bargains. Basically what happens is, some elder goes to meet their maker. Junior, who has lived out of state for 30 years, stashes all of mom’s stuff in a storage facility until he can figure out what to do with it. Eventually, he just stops paying the monthly rental. The storage facility then gets to auction off all of the stuff to re-coup the back rent.

At these auctions, there will occassionally be a trunk or box that is put up for sale. To keep things interesting, they don’t open the box. So, you are bidding on the box, with hopes of striking it rich on the contents. It’s some fun, yes it is. :smiley:

#15

"THIS IS NOT A JOKE OR SCAM BUT 100% LEGITIMATE. "

-Usually means it is a joke or a scam.

#16

Well, that was depressing. Anyone read the “Q&A” section, where people begged for her stuff and her money (I just wanna put my daughter threw [sic] cheerleading! etc…), and told her what a wonderful selfless person she was being? WTH? Even if I believed it was legit, I don’t get how it’s supposed to be selfless in any way.

#17

I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

#18

She just signed up and has zero rating.
It stinks.
Besides, if it is an inheritance, the parents would be dead. Unless it is grandparents or something.
I bet:

a) scam.
b) she is trying to pay for college.
c) scam.

#19

After having read it, she claims that the stuff has already been deeded to her by her parents when she requested her inheritance ahead of time. So it makes sense in that way. It still screams scam though.

#20

All I know is that if I had a vault with 20 mystery presents each worth $1000 in it, I sure wouldn’t sell it sight unseen.