A man attempted to sell his own kidney on eBay and the bids shockingly reached over $5 million.
It’s not exactly what you expect to find when scrolling through the second hand site but it seems like people using eBay back in 1999 may have been in for a shock.
This is because one man decided to sell off more than just worn clothes and unwanted DVDs, instead he put a vital organ up for sale.
A user in Florida with the handle ‘hchero’ listed what he claimed to be a working human organ, which was originally reported as being a kidney but later coverage described it being a liver.
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In the description of the listing, it said something along the lines of: “Fully functional organ for sale… Buyer pays all transplant and medical costs. Only one available as I need the other to live. Serious bids only.”
Unbelievably, the kidney (or liver) proved to be popular, with the bids climbing to a whopping $5.7 million before eBay stepped in and removed the listing from the site.
It was pulled from sale because it violated the terms of eBay’s policy, which prohibits users from selling human body parts.
And it isn’t just the website policy that bans people from these types of sales as it is against the law in the US to sell human organs and tissues, and is punishable by prison sentences and fines.
Many people have taken to social media to react to the bizarre story, with one user writing on Reddit: “TIL [today I learned], in 1999, a Florida man auctioned his kidney on Ebay. The post read "You can choose either kidney. Buyer pays all transplant and medical costs. Of course only one for sale, as I need the other one to live. Serious bids only." The bids reached $5.7 million before the company abruptly ended it.”
This prompted a response from others, with one person saying: “What the f***, I'd dig one of my kidneys out with a blunt spoon if someone offered me $5million for it.”
Another commented: “jokes on you...the stitches you'll need from any ER are roughly 5mil.”
And a fourth user added: “One of my friends in college tried to sell the other friend's soul on Ebay. Ebay took down the post saying that 1.) if the soul doesn't exist then you can't sell it on Ebay, and 2.) if it does exist then it would fall under Ebay's 'body parts clause' and you still would not be allowed to sell it. This was in 2000, Pennsylvania.”