A new hobby

Calvin loves Pokemon. He has a binder full of cards. He knows all the stats. He plays the video games (once, his mom told him to put the game down, it was time to get out of the car; "it won't let me!" was his reply).

His dad decided to buy a large lot of cards on eBay to use as allowance each week, should Calvin earn it. Calvin liked the idea and asked if he could spend his birthday money on some cards from eBay. His dad said sure, but only $10. So Calvin and his dad sat down, picked out a set of 100 cards each and ordered them. All told, 200 cards were on their way for less than $18. Both Calvin and Dad felt that they got a pretty good deal.

The next day Calvin informed his dad that the first set of cards had come in the mail so his dad decided to sit down at the computer and leave feedback for the seller. When he logged into eBay, he saw that he needed to leave feedback for 7 items. He had made a purchase or two of his own recently, but 7 was certainly not the right number. When he looked over and saw the line-up of new purchases, it included 5 individual Pokemon cards (most of Calvin's favorites) totaling around $28.

Dad screamed for Calvin to get in the house. While Calvin made the trip inside, Dad saw that there was another auction in progress that he was the high bidder for. Fortunately, the current bid was only $1. Unfortunately, Dad's maximum bid entered was $54.08. Calvin faced Dad's wrath for a few minutes, then spent the better part of the next hour sitting on the steps staring at the wall. Dad spent the next hour calling Calvin's grandpa for advice and attempting to retract his bid. Fortunately, the auction ended at $1. The average price per card dropped a little from the 200 for $18 when you factor in the next 6 were going to cost another $32.

Dad decided to look through his email to see what had actually occurred. The purchases had all been made between 9:24 and 9:43 that morning. Some pretty smooth computer hacking and efficient shopping for a 7-year-old.

This is also when gravity of the situation hit. Calvin made a couple of "buy it now" purchases. In other messages, "Congratulations! You are currently the highest bidder" was followed by maximum bids of $.90, $25, $54.08, $2,583.22, and $5,000.