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Bids for Site with Vulgar Name Top $3 Million

13 September 2000

A Web site that irreverently lampoons dot-com companies that are in trouble -- often according to rumor only -- has fetched bids of more than $3 million in an eBay auction the owner claims to have launched because he was "bored."

The site, using the most profane of words in its name (FuckedCompany.com, the Dot-com Deadpool) to describe the poor financial condition of the companies it monitors, had drawn 68 legitimate bids by late Tuesday afternoon, with a high bid of $3,000,300.

Several other bids had been retracted or cancelled, with one departing bidder explaining, "Woah, serious auction not for me." A $9.4 million bid was yanked as a hoax, said eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove, adding that the bid is larger than any other successful bid in eBay's five-year history.

"He (site founder Philip Kaplan) was sincere in listing it," said Pursglove. "He has started bid verification" to help weed out bogus bids.

"I was bored this morning so I put FC on eBay," said the site's home page. "Bidding starts at $1." In the eBay description, Kaplan, known as "Pud" on the site, says he decided to sell because other duties do not allow him to spend enough time on the project to do it justice.

But he offered to continue his work through the ownership transition, which may explain this comment posted on the site's message board, attributed to "Pud," in response to an insinuation that he was giving up. "I'm not throwing in the towel. I just wanna get paid for this."

Not all site devotees were happy with Pud's decision to sell. "Pud, quit trying to monetize the deadpool," said one. Another came to Pud's aid: "Completely disagree. If you can pull off a couple million, you'll be my hero!"

The message board and the rest of the site is riddled with obscenities, particularly the f-word upon which the site's name is based.

The closing date for bidding is Sept. 20. eBay is at www.ebay.com.

Reported by Newsbytes, www.newsbytes.com.

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