Man auctions off his life, sale price disappoints

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A man who put his life up for auction on eBay found it wasn't worth quite as much as he thought when he settled for around A$100,000 (48,000 pounds) less than his target price.

Ian Usher, 44, held the seven-day auction of all his belongings, including his three-bedroom home in the west Australian city of Perth and a trial for his job at a rug store, after the break-up of his five-year marriage.

Bids had reached as high as A$2.2 million, only for Usher to discover there had been a glitch on eBay's system which allowed the participation of non-registered bidders who had put in bogus offers.

In the end, the winning bidder agreed to pay A$399,300 (190,656 pounds) for all of Usher's worldly goods, which also include his friends, a motorcycle and a jetski. According to the eBay website, the mystery buyer, whose user name is "mslmcc", is in Australia and has a 100 percent feedback score.

Usher, who gave regular updates on the auction on his Web site www.alife4sale.com, now plans to travel in search of a new life.

He's not the first person to put his life on the block.

American John Freyer started All My Life For Sale (www.allmylifeforsale.com) in 2001 and sold everything he owned on eBay, later visiting the people who bought his things.

Adam Burtle, a 20-year-old U.S. university student, offered his soul for sale on eBay in 2001, with bidding hitting $400 before eBay called it off, saying there had to be something tangible to sell. Burtle later admitted he was a bored geek.

($1 = A$1.05)