British man lists his girlfriend on eBay, prank backfires
Bids on the girlfriend, listed playfully as a "miniature collectible," reached nearly $100,000
Bids on the girlfriend, listed playfully as a "miniature collectible," reached nearly $100,000
As reported by CTVNews in Australia, Dale Leeks, a British man whose occupation is listed as "full-time legend" on Facebook, posted his girlfriend, Kelly Greaves, for auction on eBay after the two got into a playful argument.
While Greaves — who Leeks has been dating for a year — was getting ready for a night out, Leeks reportedly logged onto the computer and posted her as a "miniature collectible" on eBay. He listed her simply and succinctly as "Girlfriend," and wrote that she made "constant whining noises," and has a few other lewd descriptors.
CTVNews reports Leeks showed his girlfriend the post, who laughed it off before the two left for their outing.
But then the notifications started rolling in — bids were coming in from all over the world.
"The first few bids and messages on eBay were from friends who had seen I'd done it and gone and bid on her. But from there, it just majorly spiraled out of control. The bids started going mad. I was like, 'Wow, what have I done?'" Leeks said.
Interested "buyers" asked Leeks questions as if they were interested in purchasing a car, and others Leeks said he "wouldn't repeat."
When eBay finally removed the ad 24 hours after it was first posted, the highest bid had reached nearly $100,000.
"They told me I couldn’t sell a human being," Leeks told CTVNews.
Given the horrific reality of human trafficking, some are calling the joke in "poor taste."
Greaves and Leeks were reportedly friends for a decade before they started dating, which Leeks offers up as evidence that Greaves knew what she was getting into when she started dating him.
"She couldn’t get into a relationship with me like this if she couldn’t take a joke," he told CTVNews. "This is a just a normal day living with me, really, I do stuff like this all the time."
"Kelly turned around and said to me, 'So what price would you actually have sold me for? Would you have been upset if someone actually bought me?' I said I would have been upset but I would have been crying in either a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, which makes it a whole lot better," Leeks said.