We all know that real estate prices are falling, but this is ridiculous. Here is a land auction ad that appeared recently on eBay:
Actually, the auction began at $1.00, and quickly zoomed to a $1.25. A week later, the five acres of land in San Bernardino went up to $570. Still a bargain by any standard. Or is it?
*MOUSE PRINT: Tucked away in the description of what you are bidding for is this further disclosure:
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Translation: You are only bidding on the downpayment, and then you must also pay about $300 a month for the next 15 years. That comes to $54,000 including interest at an unspecified rate.
Of course, you need to make sure the advertiser really owns the property, that it is not located next to a nuclear power plant, and you will own more than just mineral rights.
Update: The auction ended on September first with a winning bid of $1525.
Gotta love people’s creativity in trying to deceive others.
The interest rate calculates out to about 9%.
I have some acreage on the moon, willing to sell for 1 dollar an acre:
mouse print: it isn’t actually my property and I printed out the deeds on my HP 1200 printer but think how proudly you can display your deed to an acre of moon land. Please enclose 19.99 for shipping and handling of the deed. thanks, PT Barnum. “a sucker is born every minute”
Not sure what’s the point with recent mouseprints about ebay scams and other online scams. If one counted all of them, they’d have a full-time job just reading the blog on it.
buying anything on ebay is risky as they donot honor their garantee.