MarvinisaLunatic 0 Report post Posted January 29, 2004 Fore sail, cheape: eBay bargains, spelling optional When Holly Marshall wanted to sell a pair of dangling earrings, she listed them on eBay once but got no takers. She tried a second time, but still no interest. Was it the price? The fuzzy picture? Maybe it was the description: a beautiful pair of chandaleer earrings. Such is the eBay underworld of misspellers, where the clueless and careless sell labtop computers, throwing knifes, Art Deko vases, camras, comferters and saphires. They do get bidders, but not many. Often the buyers are those who troll for spelling slip-ups, buying items on the cheap and selling them all over again on eBay, but with the right spelling and for the right price. John H. Green, a jeweler in central Florida who sells by the name toecheese1, is one of them. He once bought a box of gers for $2. They were gears for pocket watches, which he cleaned up and put back on the auction block with the right spelling. They sold for $200. "I've bought and sold stuff on eBay and Yahoo! that I bought for next to nothing" because of poor spelling or vague descriptions, Green said. David Scroggins, who lives in Milwaukee, also searches for misspellings. His company provides entertainment for weddings and corporate events and microphone systems for shows at Wisconsin's casinos. He has bought Hubbell electrical cords for a 10th of their usual cost by searching for not only Hubell but also Hubbel. And he now operates his entire business by laptop computers, having bought three Compaqs for a pittance simply by asking for Compacts. No one knows how much misspelling is out there in eBay land, where more than $23 billion worth of goods were sold last year. The company does flag common misspellings, but wrong spellings can also turn up similar misspellings, so that buyers and sellers frequently read past the Web site's slightly bashful line asking whether, by any chance, "Did you mean . . . chandelier?" An unofficial survey -- an hour's search for creative spellings -- turned up dozens of items, including bycicles, telefones, dimonds (both Neil and the sparkly kind), mother of perl, cuttlery, bedroom suits and loads of antiks. Contacted, the sellers were often surprised to hear they had misspelled their wares. Marshall, who lives in Dallas, said she knew she was on shaky ground when she set out to spell chandelier. But instead of flipping through a dictionary, she did an Internet search for chandaleer and came up with 85 or so listings. She never guessed, she said, that results like that meant she was groping in the spelling wilderness. Chandelier, spelled right, turns up 715,000 times. Some say there is no evidence that people are spelling worse than they ever did. But with the growth of instant messaging and e-mails, language has grown more informal. And much as calculators did for arithmetic, spell checkers have made good spelling seem like an obsolete virtue to some. Not that spell checkers are used by everyone. Indeed, experts say the Internet -- with its discussion boards, blogs and self-published articles -- is a treasure trove of bad spelling. "Before the Internet came along, poor spelling by the public was by and large not exposed," said Paige Kimble, the director of the National Spelling Bee. "Now anybody can get out there and expose themselves." Henry Gomez, vice president for corporate communications at eBay, said the company had no way of gauging how many sales might have involved misspelled listings..... Link to the Rest of the Article Man, why did I never think to do this? Edit: I just did a search for "Nentendo" (Nintendo) and I got 4 results, 3 of which had both Nin and Nen in the title.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
OldSchoolWrestling 0 Report post Posted January 29, 2004 I did this a couple times. Sometimes when I type, I type to fast and misspell the word and hit enter before I can correct it. Quite often you still find things. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mole 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 I am selling some used golf clubs right now, Golf Clubs: Callaway Steelhead X-16 Iron Set. Some guy e-mailed me saying I was overpricing them and he could find new Callaways for $200, which is complete bullshit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tom 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 I've picked up few things on the cheap because of people misspelling simple things. A fool and his merchandise are soon parted, for less money than they should have been. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest KidKrash Report post Posted February 1, 2004 I am selling some used golf clubs right now, Golf Clubs: Callaway Steelhead X-16 Iron Set. Some guy e-mailed me saying I was overpricing them and he could find new Callaways for $200, which is complete bullshit. What exactly does this have to do with the topic? The only explanation I could think of is that he cashed in on the losses of the illiterate and just wanted to tell you that he found them cheaper than yours. I abhor blatantly mispelling easy words. If it's an understandable slip up that's fine but it gets annoying when the person can't even spell captain right. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Youth N Asia 0 Report post Posted February 1, 2004 I actually picked up a Berry Sander Score rookie this way for $10 back when it was around $100 this way Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MarvinisaLunatic 0 Report post Posted February 2, 2004 I haven't been able to find any great deals yet. Closest I came was a Plam Zire 71 for $20, but the bidder who bid $20 probably put a high max bid on it because I bid up to about $50 and I kept getting outbid. I thought about trying to go to $100 but I really don't have a $100 to spend right now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
