Man Selling Life On eBay Off To Amazing Start

How much would your life be worth if you tried to put it into dollars and cents? That’s the question Ian Usher is attempting to answer. And while he doesn’t quite have a figure yet, he knows it’s not $2 million.

Last week, we told you about the odd method the 44-year-old Australian resident is using to try and start a brand new life to get over a break-up with his longtime girlfriend. He’s taken to eBay to sell off his entire existence – including his home, his job and even his pals – to the highest bidder.

He plans to pocket the money, head to the airport carrying only his wallet, his passport and his name, and fly off to an as yet unknown destination to start over, while someone else quite literally steps into his shoes.

The auction began on Sunday and it was immediately clear not everyone was taking his quest seriously. Someone put up a bid of Cdn$2.1 million, which even the “owner” acknowledges is a ridiculous and obviously fake amount, and it was immediately discounted.

Other reasonable offers were being taken a lot more seriously. “Apologies to all, but I guess there are a lot of bored idiots out there,” Usher noted on his website. “Anyway after a long day on the computer, I have decided to pull all bids back as far as the first registered bidder, and the price is back to A$155,000 (about Cdn$150,000) as I write this … we are back in the land of common sense and reality, so it’s over to you.”

The last check indicated the amount had topped Cdn$300,000 and there’s still a few days left. Usher intends to award his existence and all his worldly goods on June 29th, after which his old life ends and an uncertain one begins. We’ll bring you the results next week.

See video of what’s being offered here

See the eBay page with the auction here

He hopes to make enough to finance a new start, while giving someone else a similar beginning – along with a video game system, parachute equipment, a fully furnished house, a car and a spa. But we may not know who takes over the house of Usher for some time. All the bidders have to be verified and because there’s a property transaction involved, there are specific local rules that must be followed.

“The real estate category on eBay is a non-binding section because of the real estate laws in Australia,” explains eBay spokesperson Sian Kennedy. “You need a special license to sell real estate.”

Usher isn’t the first person to put your money where his life is on the Internet. A 24-year-old Australian student offered his existence to the world last year as a protest of consumerism.

An American sold everything he owned on eBay and then went to visit every single person who bought something of his. He turned it into a book – although there’s no word if it sold, too.

And while web giant eBay has a high tolerance for the unusual, there are some places it won’t go. A 20-year-old university student needed money for school in 2001, so he offered to sell his soul to the highest bidder. He made it to $400, before the site called the ridiculous fundraiser off.

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