Dale Leeks decided to list his girlfriend, Kelly Greaves, on Ebay in an act of revenge, after she whipped him across the bum in a riding shop. He created a listing designed to sting, describing her condition as ‘for parts or not working’ and saying there was a ‘constant whining noise’. Treating Kelly as a used car, Dale described her bodywork as ‘fairly tidy but close up shows signs of wear’, and wrote that ‘the rear end leaks a bit but nothing that can’t be plugged.’ ‘No serious damage but you can see she’s been used,’ he added. All in all, a mean joke angled firmly at Kelly’s expense. But the prank backfired a bit when Kelly started raking in the bids.
Within 24 hours the listing had been viewed 81,000 times, and had received 100 bids to reach £70,200. Dale received hundreds of messages from interested buyers asking if they could take Kelly for a test drive. ‘I’m fairly interested in putting a bid in,’ wrote one bidder. ‘Can you tell me how many previous owners she has had? Also, what’s her service history like?’ Another asked: ‘Does she smoke when she’s being revved hard?’ Sadly, Kelly didn’t get to take the money and use it to enact revenge on her partner, as one day in the listing was removed by Ebay as the sale of ‘human body parts and remains’ are not allowed on the site.