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German girl 'up for sale' on eBay
- Thread starter iGav
- Start date
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iGAV said:
There are 3 types of people who would be interested in this.
1) People who are looking for a child to take care of, who are good intentioned well meaning people.
2) Sicko's, preverts etc.
3) People buying a playmate for their children (see The Toy with Richard Pryor)
My big thought is that the crackheads have stumbled into the 21st century.
what worse: that they posted it or even before it was shut down the bidding was up to 30 euros???
MongoTheGeek said:
That people would bid at all is crazy.
Only child molesters would want to "buy" a kid to "play" with them!
Dippo said:
exactly.
i was implying it was just as bad if not worse that people wanted to bid on a child to play with. esp. b/c that auction probably wasnt up for terribly long.
Dippo said:
There are a lot of people who buy things other than for their suggested uses. I buy Q-Tips to stick them into the ear canal and remove earwax from there (where is says explicitly not to)
Some of the bids may have been to get the child into a safe situation.
Even if you just bid as a joke. You have just opened up the next few months at least to the police and even rumors being started of you being a child molestor. So if it was a joke bid, this will be one of the biggest bad jokes of their life.
MongoTheGeek said:
yea but if i had seen this auction i would have alerted ebay to call child services, not purchased the child.
its a nice thought that someone wanted to protect the child, but as someone else mentioned, i would think twice before bidding on a child on ebay, if only for the investigation this would cause...
once again, not only does reality beat fiction. It wraps fiction in chickenwire with heavy weights on it, and chucks it into the harbour on a silent night.
FYI, German news reported some additional detail. The kids were living with their mother and her current boyfriend. The investigation is still going on (they are also investigating against the bidders, so don't joke-bid on such offers), but authorities already placed the kids in the custody of the father. Seems once they were asked (in the absence of their mother!) where they want to stay, the kids were quite clear about wanting to be with their father.
The first thing I thought of was that it would be a pretty effective threat....
"If you don't eat all your dinner, I'm going to put you on ebay!"
"If you don't go to bed this instant, I'm going to put you on ebay!"
If you don't do what your father tells you, I'm going to put you on ebay!"
Perhaps the child called the mothers bluff!
"If you don't eat all your dinner, I'm going to put you on ebay!"
"If you don't go to bed this instant, I'm going to put you on ebay!"
If you don't do what your father tells you, I'm going to put you on ebay!"
Perhaps the child called the mothers bluff!
I think people just like to "push" ebay to see how far they can take it. I can't believe that anybody would think they could get away with auctioning off a child...
As for the people who bid, there's the investigation, but for what crime? Since the auction was pulled, no illegal transaction took place. The law can't claim to know what they "intended" to do. Now, if the auction had actually been completed and somebody "bought" the girl, then I could see going after the buyer, but in this case, there was no buyer because the auction never closed.
Of course, the parents, who did unquestionably attempt to sell a child, should have their children taken away and the father given a forced-vasectomy to make sure they never have children again, but that might also be beyond the scope of the law.
As for the people who bid, there's the investigation, but for what crime? Since the auction was pulled, no illegal transaction took place. The law can't claim to know what they "intended" to do. Now, if the auction had actually been completed and somebody "bought" the girl, then I could see going after the buyer, but in this case, there was no buyer because the auction never closed.
Of course, the parents, who did unquestionably attempt to sell a child, should have their children taken away and the father given a forced-vasectomy to make sure they never have children again, but that might also be beyond the scope of the law.
coolsoldier said:
my guess is a background check and some unofficial investigating...while they didnt do anything wrong, its certainly suspicious. and what if it escalates?
now, is this right? no. i think its scary that the police watch what we do online.
on the other hand, how is investigating people who bid any different then undercover cops posing as kids in chatrooms?
Sun Baked said:Hey Michael Jackson did it all the time.
On a slightly unrelated topic...
Laugh with me now my british friends!!
question fear said:
Well, the police so far rely on people reporting illegal auctions, they don't monitor eBay (at least in Germany).
Let's not forget that the bidders have entered a legally binding contract to buy an eight year old girl. This is something the police should look into.