The spotlight last week has been on online auctions, and the evidence seems to be that people in New Zealand are overwhelmingly stupid. Three items have been picked up by several media sources over the last week, the biggy being $1.2 million worth of missing tax over the last couple of years. Apparently, all those people who have been making a decent income from selling stuff on TradeMe didn’t think they would have to pay any tax—Chris Budge from TradeMe said that people “are stupid if they think they will get away with not paying tax”, but considering that they have got away with it for two years, it seems that maybe it’s IRD that was a bit stupid to take so long to pick up on it.
Still, tax evasion isn’t as novel an idea as selling ghosts on TradeMe, and I can’t help marveling at how many idiots are willing to fork out money for two jars, which the seller claims contain holy water and the spirits of an old man and a little girl. Still, the 149 bids that were placed, reaching $2830, didn’t amaze me as much as some of the comments on the auction. As well as those criticising the seller for not putting the spirits at rest, people wanted to know what would happen if they released the spirits, whether they were edible, whether they could be drunk, and whether the seller wanted to copyright the ‘product’ and sell it as an energy drink. My fave was the person who wanted to know if the ghosts would be strong enough to scare his/her mother-in-law away. It might seem like something to giggle at, but unfortunately, news of our shame has spread as far as Britain.
Things don’t get any better either. An unidentified man has paid $45,000 for the virginity of a 19-year-old New Zealand girl, making him stupider than 1200 other bidders. Even if he weren’t stupid for thinking that a 19-year-old from Northland could still be a virgin, how desperate would you have to be to pay that kind of money for sex? Surely he could get a better deal in Christchurch? The prize for stupidity has to go to the girl though, who auctioned off her virginity in order to pay for her university fees. Honestly, if you can make $45k laying on your back for two minutes, why go to uni?
Big Mouth