Why A Man Put His Wife Up For Sale On EBay — And Got Bids Up To $961,700
He got hundreds of bids.
eBay In 2008, Paul Osborn of the U.K. suspected his wife Sharon was having an affair, so he put her for sale on eBay.
First, he evicted his wife from their home.
But he didn't stop there. He then took to the internet to try to sell her.
I mean, could you imagine taking a scroll through eBay one day to check out the goods and finding this there? Shirt, shoes, basketball, someone's wife ... umm, what?
He listed the goods as "cheating, lying, adulterous slag of a wife" and despite the unflattering picture Osborn not-so-subtly chose of his wife, bids reached $961,700.
And what was Osborn's reasoning for doing all this? He claimed that his wife was having an affair with someone who she worked with.
He said, "I started checking her emails and I realized the rumors were true. They had been discussing their sex life together and making plans for the future. I was absolutely destroyed. I gathered all her stuff in bags and dumped it in the drive."
Mrs. Osborn was a railways manager, and Mr. Osborn was a traffic inspector. She denied his claims that she was having an affair, and police began to investigate him for harassment.
Osborn had reportedly already taken his wife back once before he started the whole eBay debacle. However, even after he took her back, he still thought she was cheating, and that's when he fired up the good old internet.
He said, “In a fit of rage I put the advert on eBay. I later took it off because I realized it wasn’t the right thing to do. I was just so angry.”
And good thing he did: eBay's terms of use forbid the sale of humans, in whole or in part.
I'd like to think all's well that ends well since Osborn did take down the post before the allotted auction time expired, thereby shattering the dreams of the people who had already bid on Mrs. Osborn.
Then again, Paul later commented that he wished he could have sold her for that amount because "it would have helped with the mortgage."
Genevieve Lill is the former VP of content and branded media at YourTango, and is now a writer and Editor-in-Chief of Simplemost. Follow her on Twitter for more.