The Power of EBay!

[moviebuff2]

MONTREAL (AFP) - After catching his 15-year-old smoking pot, a father sold the hard-to-get "Guitar Hero III" video game he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars.

The sale took place after the father spent two weeks searching for the video game for the Nintendo Wii gameboard.

"So I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn't wait to spread the jubilance to my son," the father wrote on the eBay website.

"Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends."

The man, a school teacher, who kept his identity private, said he sold the coveted video game to punish his son and discourage him from smoking dope.

The sale was a boon for the family's bank account, since the game the father purchased for 90 dollars (US) was finally sold to an Australian who plunked down 9,100 dollars for it.

The naughty son, however, will not go without a present on Christmas.

"I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars ... I know he will just love them," the father said, tongue-in-cheek.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/canadainternetdrugchristmasoffbeat


$9,000 on $90 and it's not even an antique!

[Dv8ted2]

[Conquest10]

$9,000!!!!? Is it really that hard to find? I got to put my copy up.

[MrMoody]

What a crock.

The scalper bought it to sell and copied a similar story from last year to drum up publicity for his auction.

What serves him right is the bidder is probably also bogus and will never pay.

[Super Warrior]

Story is fake. I've seen auctions similar to this pop up every year around this time for a while now.

Last year i think i saw one for a PS3 with the same old story: his/her child was misbehaving in some manner and the parent decided to sell it on e-bay to teach them a lesson. Old.

[lordsmurf]

Snopes.com is your friend when you think something is BS. It will confirm or deny.

Yahoo is a tabloid, not a news source. They don't verify anything. Disgusting.

[Forum Troll]

People make up these fake auctions all the time, then leak them out to the world. usually to drive up sales on their other stuff. Ebay will just cancel the auction as fraudulent, but all the free press and one zillion hits the news drives to their website is priceless. Think of all the ad revenue these hits will bring.

[Dv8ted2]

Snopes.com is your friend when you think something is BS. It will confirm or deny.

Yahoo is a tabloid, not a news source. They don't verify anything. Disgusting.

Snopes is the computer equivalent of the National Enquirer. They have no credibility whatsoever.

[lordsmurf]

Snopes.com is your friend when you think something is BS. It will confirm or deny. Yahoo is a tabloid, not a news source. They don't verify anything. Disgusting.

Snopes is the computer equivalent of the National Enquirer. They have no credibility whatsoever.

How do you figure that? I've never seen anything incorrect on that site.

[Dv8ted2]

edit

[lordsmurf]

Snopes does not send e-mails, it debunks such chain letters.

Snopes is the site that debunks myths, rumors, chain letters, online misinformation, etc. And it does so quite well.

As an IT person, you should know very well that software can destroy hardware. I've seen some nasties out there (mostly 10 years ago, nothing really recent) that attempt to inject code into hardware's firmware, or software that attacks flaws in certain hardware actions, or software that preys on the repetitive nature of hardware actions (thus causing fatal wear in hours or days or weeks, rather than the years-long life cycle). And it's not always malicious software, sometimes it's simple programmer error. You also need to think outside of Windows, Linux and Mac here, there is a lot of non-mainstream tech out there, hardware/software combos, and I've seen it there too.

Firmware-upgrade-related deaths are the most common on this site (and in the realm of video). The update software can miscommunicate with the drive, and it will "kill" the drive in many situations.

[Dv8ted2]

deleted

[lordsmurf]

"The email states that Snopes said that the hoax is true. " ........ well no shit. That's the newest piece of fake BS added into these chain letters, and it will dupe stupid people who are too lazy to go to snopes and verify. How do you figure this is snopes fault?

"I do not believe everything I read." ........ and that's usually sage advice, but you're starting to borderline with those people who wear tin-foil hats, on this topic.

"software cannot destroy hardware" ........... if software (malicious or not) causes a piece of hardware to cycle abnormally, and the hardware hard faults, then no amount of rebuilding (sector zero, etc) is going to fix this. It broken, the end. At best, it can maybe be rebuilt, hardware repaired, or at least (in the case of data storage) rebuilt long enough temporarily to recover the data. Any piece of equipment with moving parts, controlled by software, can do this. ATMs come to mind, when software gets caught in a loop, and causes the forward cash delivery belt to run non-stop, often burning out the smaller motor that power the belts. Those belt motors are rated for countless thousands of hours, but not non-stop. I don't know what sector of IT you're in, but it appears you've been in a bubble (I say this not to be mean, but consider hardware and software not in your own office).

[Dv8ted2]

lets just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

[Jester700]

Snopes does not send e-mails, it debunks such chain letters.

Snopes is the site that debunks myths, rumors, chain letters, online misinformation, etc. And it does so quite well.

Let me clarify somewhat. The email states that Snopes said that the hoax is true. That was not the true intent of the postcard virus. This email gave credence to Snopes in something that is a hoax. While Snopes did not originate the email IMHO, it took any credibility Snopes had away.

IMO credibility has been lost here, but not that of Snopes...

[Mylan23]

Wow great profit!

[Dv8ted2]

IMO credibility has been lost here, but not that of Snopes...

I guess you never make mistakes...

My point is that I do not trust Snopes. End of story...