Imagine coming home to find the sheriff on your doorstep with an eviction notice, and then being given 3 hours to get the hell off your property, which is no longer yours because your bank mistakenly sold it out from under you for about a third of its value. Oops! Although we initially assumed WaMu/Chase was behind all of it, NCB Miami reports that actually “a mistake in the Miami-Dade Clerk’s Office appears to be behind the mishap, which landed Ramirez homeless for more than 24 hours.”
auctions
![Circuit City Auctions 30 Million Customer Contacts](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/504x_firedog.jpg?w=300&h=225&crop=1)
Circuit City Auctions 30 Million Customer Contacts
Circuit City is putting a snazzy item up on the auction block — 30 million customer contacts and its Firedog home installation/repair brand.
![GM Cleans Out Closet, Will Sell New Cars On eBay](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/8-10-2009_11-09-38_am.jpg?w=300&h=207&crop=1)
GM Cleans Out Closet, Will Sell New Cars On eBay
GM just realized that the downstairs hall closet is a freakin’ mess. Mom went down there and saw all these, like, Pontiacs and stuff in there and now everyone is in trouble for letting it get this bad. The solution? An eBay store!
![Get Your Own Ill-Gotten Gains At PropertyRoom.com](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/custom_1248768491342_deals.png?w=300&h=225&crop=1)
Get Your Own Ill-Gotten Gains At PropertyRoom.com
Homer Simpson: Well, I bet there’s drug dresses and drug vacuum cleaners too.
![Want To Experience Retail Crack? Try Swoopo](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/072009-003-slots.png?w=158&h=158&crop=1)
Want To Experience Retail Crack? Try Swoopo
Just in case that headline doesn’t make it clear: we do not recommend you try Swoopo, because you do not want to experience retail crack. Stay far, far away from Swoopo. Swoopo will feed into every gambling and spending impulse buried in the irrational parts of your brain, and suck up your money. There’s a reason the site describes itself as “entertainment shopping.”
![County Sells Wachovia Bank For $16,900 For Failure To Pay Taxes](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/052909-003-wachovia-sold.png?w=158&h=158&crop=1)
County Sells Wachovia Bank For $16,900 For Failure To Pay Taxes
When Wachovia closed its bank branch in Shoemakersville, PA, last month, a spokesperson made it sound like it was part of a normal review of locations. Local newspaper the Reading Eagle, however, found out that the bank lost the branch last September in a tax sale, when a local company bought the building for only $16,900.
!["New" Phone Bought Off EBay Turns Out To Be Used, Porny](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/042209-003-not-shopping-on-ebay.png?w=158&h=158&crop=1)
"New" Phone Bought Off EBay Turns Out To Be Used, Porny
Lillian bought what she thought was a new phone from an eBay seller with a lot of great feedback. The longer she has it, though, the more evidence she finds that it’s probably not new. Sometimes buying electronics off of eBay is like slowly peeling an onion.
![Grocery Auctions: Going Once, Going Twice, Going Off!](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/grocerycart.jpg?w=158&h=113&crop=1)
Grocery Auctions: Going Once, Going Twice, Going Off!
Grocery auctions are sweeping the nation! The concept is simple: you bid on super-low-priced food items and paper goods, and walk away with a cart full of groceries for $100s less than you’d spend at your local supermarket. But the reality is that most of the food is expired, damaged, or past its promotion deadline. So are you really getting a good deal? And what do those “best before” dates really signify?
![Systemax Wants To Buy Circuit City Website For $6.5 Million](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/041309-003-zombie-circuit-city.png?w=158&h=158&crop=1)
Systemax Wants To Buy Circuit City Website For $6.5 Million
Systemax, the company behind Tiger Direct (and the buyer of CompUSA’s remains when it went out of business over a year ago) has announced it plans to buy the Circuit City e-commerce business for $6.5 million cash plus a share of the revenue over a 30 month period.
![Texas Family Sad That The Buyer Of All Their Possessions On eBay Will Pay But Not Take Their Stuff](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/weirdsaleeh.jpg?w=300&h=225&crop=1)
Texas Family Sad That The Buyer Of All Their Possessions On eBay Will Pay But Not Take Their Stuff
Meet Gregg and Brittiny Peters. They’ve had a pretty terrible year. Two of their children were diagnosed with costly medical disorders, and as the bills began to mount, they decided to start over by selling all their worldly possessions on eBay. Enter Donnia and Keith Blair, who upon learning of the Peters’ plight, bid $20,000 and won the auction. Here’s the catch: the Blair’s are willing to pay, but they don’t want to take any of the Peters’ things. This has apparently infuriated the Peters.
![eBay To Be Credit Card, PayPal Only](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ebayslots1.jpg?w=240&h=180&crop=1)
eBay To Be Credit Card, PayPal Only
The word is that eBay is banning checks and money orders, and buyers will have to use PayPal or (if the seller has a credit card merchant account or an account with a service called ProPay), credit cards.
![Counterfeit Smackdown! EBay Ordered To Pay $61 Million](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/070108-001-louisvuitton158.jpg?w=158&h=118&crop=1)
Counterfeit Smackdown! EBay Ordered To Pay $61 Million
That headline is the good news. The bad news is the $61 million in damages ordered by a French court isn’t meant for regular shoppers who have been defrauded when shopping on eBay. Instead, it’s been awarded to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods company behind Louis Vuitton purses (among other fancy things, as you can see from their name). LVMH argued that “90 percent of the Louis Vuitton bags and Dior perfumes sold on eBay are fakes,” and that eBay profited off the sales without doing enough to stop them. EBay can appeal the decision, or simply click the “Pay It Now!” button.
![EBay Decides To Contact Tim About His Laptop Auction Problems](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/050908-004-wiltingflowers49.jpg?w=300&h=225&crop=1)
EBay Decides To Contact Tim About His Laptop Auction Problems
Timothy, our hapless eBay seller who kept having problems listing his laptop on the auction site, was contacted by a Real Live Human from eBay the day after we posted his story. “Garrison” apologized for the frustration, and said he’d be making a note on Timothy’s account to keep it from getting shut down by other agents. He also suggested several listing options that were pretty well-covered by our commenters in the original thread.
![eBay Boycott Having An Effect? Listings Are Down 13%](../../../../consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ebaylogosmall1.jpg?w=120&h=52&crop=1)
eBay Boycott Having An Effect? Listings Are Down 13%
USAToday says the eBay boycott over fee and policy changes has driven listings down as much as 13%: