Items Confiscated At Airports Sold on Ebay

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Gerald Ballman <ballman () usna edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 11:58:19 -0500
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Items Confiscated At Airports Sold on Ebay

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/28/BA64041.DTL


Bureaucrats get EBay fever
State sells penknives confiscated at airports at online auction

Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer   Friday, February 28, 2003

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That pocketknife you surrendered to airport security screeners might now be
tucked away in
someone else's pocket -- someone who bought it on EBay.

Under the handle CaliforniaGold2000, the state is using the Internet auction
house to convert
scores of confiscated items to cash.

So far, $16,281 has been made selling objects taken from passengers at
Oakland and Sacramento
airports -- the only ones in Northern California to participate in the state
program. 

Among the oddest items confiscated and sold were at least three circular
saws, hatchets,
curtain rods and a little girl's baton, said Robb Deignan, spokesman for the
surplus property
disposal program, a division of the California Department of General
Services. 

Also sold: 5,364 pocketknives, 350 pounds of scissors, 594 corkscrews and
309 leatherman tools.


The Transportation Security Administration, which employs most airport
screeners, allows
airports to decide how to get rid of the mountains of items collected, said
spokesman Nico
Melendez. 

They are too numerous to return to their owners, Deignan said.

Since November, when the program started, 2,400 pounds of objects have been
delivered from the
Sacramento airport, and 2,250 pounds from Oakland.

In cash-strapped, tech-savvy California, someone in the state's surplus
property program
thought up the idea of selling the things on EBay, Deignan said.

California may be the only state in the country that has employed EBay for
the purpose. 

"We're putting items that are reusable back in the hands of people," Deignan
said. "On EBay,
it's egalitarian. It opens the bidding to the world."

In Southern California, Los Angeles International, John Wayne and Ontario
airports participate
in the surplus program.

Meanwhile, airport officials in San Jose and San Francisco say they will
continue to dispose of
the mostly metal items by hiring haulers to take them to recyclers.

The state had been selling other surplus items, such as electronics taken in
police raids, on
EBay for several years, and already operated two public sales warehouses --
in Sacramento and
Fullerton, Deignan said.

The scissors, knives and tools taken by airport screeners are perfect for
EBay because they are
relatively valuable and easy to transport, he said.

As the effort to sell the confiscated airport items online has progressed,
employees have
become more knowledgeable about what EBay buyers want, and how best to sort
the lots. 

Most of the things for sale online are of the garden-variety pointy type:
"10 collector knives,
Gerber," "200 money clips, lots of styles and brands" and "mountains of
miscellaneous used hand
tools." 

Bidding starts at $9.99, with the most expensive auction so far bringing
$835 for 350
pocketknives. 

The proceeds are divided between the state and federal governments. The
state uses its share to
offset the cost of the program, Deignan said.

He said he has heard no complaints about the program -- aside from the state
employee who told
him that the EBay descriptions should be more poetic.

But when some airline passengers who had unwittingly donated items to the
cause were informed
of the program, they weren't too pleased.

"As far as the concept is concerned, I think it's ridiculous," said Bernard
Wormgoor, who was
flying out of Oakland with his wife when she was asked to relinquish a pair
of nail scissors
that her mother had given her some 40 years before.

"They don't own it. They took it away -- that doesn't mean you relinquish
ownership," he said.
"I don't want to use the word 'theft,' but it starts smelling like it."

Nicola Place of Danville agreed.

Flying out of Oakland on a business trip, she lost a Swiss Army knife her
dad had given her
more than 20 years ago. "It broke my heart," she said. "It had been
everywhere with me."

Thinking about it ending up on EBay, she said, "It makes me sad. . . . It
irks me that they can
take it away and make money off us. It's bad enough they take it away."

On the other side of the virtual auction block, however, are a number of
satisfied customers.

In fact, CaliforniaGold2000 boasts an admirable EBay rating, with just one
negative comment out
of 310 sales in the past six months.

The lone complaint came from user Squishypig, who claimed the item purchased
was not as
described, horribly packaged and that a refund was difficult to obtain.

CaliforniaGold2000 replied, in part, "there's no pleasing everybody."

Among the successful, satisfied bidders was Nevada City businessman Greg
Cook, owner of Friar
Tuck's Restaurant and Wine Bar, which burned down last March.

Cook is preparing to reopen the joint this spring, and he was in the market
for corkscrews. 

Never having bought an item off EBay in his life, he dipped his toe in the
bidding in the last
hours of an auction for 42 wood handle corkscrews -- and got them, $36 for
the lot. 

"They're $20 ones. They're beautiful, I've been showing them to everyone,"
Cook said. "We do a
big wine business. The wood handle ones are nicer because when you work all
night, they're nicer
on your hands. 

"I'm real happy," he said.

 


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