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Comment by nrmitchi | Hacker News Reader

I first thought these were bids for lots of items, like... cases of the item. Am I mistaken that these are actually bids on a single, quantity=1, item?

It's actually impressive if they're auctioning off failed-festival merch at Supreme prices.

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I sort of wonder if someone is trolling them with a credit card that's going to be invalid before the auction ends. Who bids $500 for a single hat you can reproduce on any custom hat site?

I feel like trolling the US Marshals with credit card fraud is a bad idea.

Oh no, what are they going to do? Go find some random poor fool you stole the card from and kick their door in? I'm sure the credit card thieves are quaking in their boots.

US police at all levels are an impotent force against online crime. Once in a while they catch some guy and then they parade it around but the likelihood of that is microscopic.

They seemed to catch the twitter hackers pretty quickly. shrug.

"FAILURE TO PAY FOR ITEMS WILL RESULT IN ACCOUNT DEACTIVATION AND DENIAL FROM PARTICIPATION IN ANY FUTURE GASTON & SHEEHAN AUCTIONS, LIVE OR ONLINE."

The consequences seem pretty light.

That doesn't preclude other punishments, no? Fraudulent auction bids are presumably fairly illegal, so criminal persecution is presumably also a possibility.

> Fraudulent auction bids are presumably fairly illegal

Someone's never been on Ebay

It’s like ebay, but where every seller has a gun, federal backing, and literally gets paid to arrest people.

It's an auction house. They aren't giving the Marshal's service item level updates. They just give the sale to the number 2 bidder and move on.

So what you're saying is, I need 2 accounts, bid $15 with one and then up myself with the fraudulent account to $500 and get the item for 15?

People actually do this on eBay sometimes

The sale goes to the number 1 bidder at some bid increment higher than the number 2 bidder's maximum bid. The current price shown is that amount, not the number 1 bidder's maximum bid. It implements a modified Vickrey auction using an autobidder.

Sounds like the solution is to be not American.

If you goal is to defraud the U.S. Marshals Service I mean.

Like what is the U.S. Marshals Service going to do to a Romanian trickster?

>> Like what is the U.S. Marshals Service going to do to a Romanian trickster?

Get him extradited in the US after possibly serving some time in Romania as well?

> <insert the DVD Jon story here>

Ah, that's a story I havent't seen cited in a long time.

Wife screamed at me threatening to divorce...blah blah. So illegal prob not but ban yes.

You're under no legal obligation to pay if you make a bid.

Using a stolen credit card, on the other hand...

I've been (not bidded) in cattle auctions in Brazil and they always announce that auction bids are irreversible.

There's quite a leap from "you can't change or revoke your bid" to "it's illegal to make a bid you have no intention of fulfilling."

On a bidding site nobody bans like Gaston! "I'm especially good at deaaaaactivations!"

I just assumed it was rich influencer fashion types who were keen to own a piece of infamy and had the disposal wealth to not over think it and just bid on homepage items.

“Hey is that hat from Fyre festival?” “Yeah it’s real, I got it online for $500”

Perfect to wear to that next Kool-Aid drinking SV investor meeting.

I think it's more like "Yeah I was totally there, we were lucky to get off that beach alive!"

It's like I'm again hearing the jokes about Russian ‘nouveau riches’ of the 90s:

— Bro, check out this tie I've bought for 500 bucks.

— Dude, you were swindled like a loser. I've bought one just like that next door, but for 700 dollars.

I placed a bunch of bids on the sweatshirts when the auction opened a few weeks ago.

Clearly there’s a limit to how much I’m willing to pay but those are amazing novelty gifts.

Never underestimate what hipsters will pay for kitsch.

I think you're underestimating how much of a meme this is. Some of these I actually considered for a hot second in my head.

The funnier thing would be to create knock-off clothing and sell it hella' cheap, flooding the market with indistinguishable fakes.

Would they be trademarked and copyrighted? Even if they were themselves a fraud?

I somehow doubt someone is going to sue you for violating those trademarks...

Depends who owns the trademarks now. They would be an asset that whoever managed the bankruptcy would be able to sell on. That person may well want to use them to make some money back.

Actually the Fyre Festival LLC owned trademark is dead: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:ad5...

Seems two different companies have rushed to register it, XNO LLC and IMG Worldwide LLC - the XNO service mark application has been granted: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:ad5...

Their trademark for use on merchandise is currently pending a submittal of a Statement of Use: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:ad5...

- so seems like the tmsearch.uspto.gov links expires... Hopefully these keeps working:

1. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87357393&caseType=SERIAL_...

2. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87981042&caseType=SERIAL_...

3. https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=87877280&caseType=SERIAL_...

Trademarks require active use, so seems the answer would be no. Copyright requires the logo/design of the merch to be sufficiently creative, a court would ultimately have to decide that, but I doubt it.

But even if it is copyrighted, who owns the rights now? The U.S. Marshals Service?

It's basically the same thing, and I say this as someone who gives money to Rick Owens.

>>Am I mistaken that these are actually bids on a single, quantity=1, item?

Ja Rule was in the vicinity of such items, we are lucky they're so cheap considering ;)

My thought exactly. The inflated prices have to be a prank

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