A baby girl was put up for sale on
eBay with a variety of photos showing her sleeping in different outfits.
Police are investigating after the
one-month-old infant, called Maria, was listed with an asking price of 5,000
euros (around £4,510).
According to the listing, which was taken
down by the auction site within half an hour, Maria lives in the city of
Duisburg in western Germany’s state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The seller titled the advert: ‘Child, 40 days old named Maria for
sale.’
It included
photographs of the dark-haired baby wearing a variety of sleepsuits.
The listing
quickly went viral on social media and internet forums where users were worried
for the safety of the child and scandalised that somebody would
post something like this.
It is not yet clear whether the eBay seller really wanted to make
money out of the baby or whether it was supposed to be a joke.
eBay spokesman
Pierre Du Bois said the company removed the listing and informed the police as
soon as they were aware of the matter.
He said: ‘We received a lot of complaints from users and we
immediately pursued the matter. In such a case, we provide the authorities with
all available information.’
Mr Du Bois said
that eBay suffered from its fair share of hoax listings including both bad
jokes and attempts to defraud users.
‘We immediately
ban these providers. We have specially trained teams which keep track on such
cases and quickly react,’ he said.
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