Bot-wielding hackers crash eBay holiday giveaway

eBay users are howling in protest after discovering hackers are using automated scripts to win hundreds of steeply discounted auctions as part of a holiday season contest designed to draw visitors to the site. Auctions for pricey items including a Green Life electric scooter and an Oscar de la Renta evening gown, which had …

[Winkypop]

It's amazing...

...that people actually CARE about crap like this.

Life is like a bus, although there is only one of them, people should jump aboard before it passes them by.....or should that be 'buy'?

[RW]

Ebay: "they just don't care"

That's not news at all.

[Andy]

article not clear

I don't get it, were is the scandal? If the auction items start at $1 and no one else bids for it, then it goes for $1, it doesn't matter if the bid comes from a script or a human.

If the item had no views then surely no one was looking for it, so there was no demand for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

So our advice to eBayers....

Go to a real store that dosent do everything it can to screw you over.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do some people think they are entitled to everything they can lay their grubby hands on?

My parents raised me to only take what I need.

Just because there are hundreds of items at huge discounts doesn't mean you need to buy as many as possible.

No doubt the people buying these items will relist them and sellfor a huge, untaxable, profit.

It's hugely selfish and the vast majority of people I know would only take one or two items in a giveaway, and only items that they actually wanted.

Greedy, selfish prople such as those depriving people in greater need of the chance of getting these items ought to hang their heads in shame.

Perhaps a kind-spirited programmer could win as many of these items as possible and donate them to charity. THAT would be a worthwhile pursuit.

[Anonymous Coward]

"they just don't care"

Well...They're not the only ones.

[ChessGeek]

@Andy

"The Grinch stealing this year's Christmas booty were bot-armed hackers who were able to sniff out the promo pages before they went live to the public."

THAT is the scandal. The pages had no views, no because no one HAD looked for them but because they were bought before anyone COULD look for them.

Pay attention, dude.

[darrin allen]

bot scripts

I have seen this scripts around the net. I was surprised someone took the time to use them

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Why do some people think they are entitled to everything they can lay their grubby hands on?

.......because they can.

If you place a cookie on a table with a 3 year old and say only take it if you NEED it and leave the room you will be mildy disappointed and minus a cookie.

Look at tickets for concerts.... as soon as they are on sale some scumbag with eighteen credit cards buys 2 tickets with each and sells the ones he's not using (that would be all eighteen coz he's a REAL scumbag) and after 40 others like him get the same idea theres 2 people who turn up to the gig coz they paid a small fortune for them on ebay.

The message is always clear - take what you want and if someone else wants it sell it to them at a massive markup.