Doh!
How did those ga-zillions of listings all get in there just in time to increase those hurting sagging listing counts?

This is all so surreal. Thousands, perhaps MILLIONS of what sure appeared to be fake listings on the ebay site, several conversations starting regarding the listings.
As we all know, the listings had no buy it now or bid buttons, they were pretty much concealed within the site, and the entire episode stinks to high heaven of scandal and fraud, on a major scale.
ebay shareholders should be verrrry concerned.

Then POOF!!! They all seemed to just vanish. Ain't that amazing? Too funny.
Now, for everyone who tuning in, I captured some of that on live screen recorded video, which is posted to youtube.

There is almost no way to express yourself without using abstract or whimsical terms. That is just how bizarre this entire thing is.

In the days leading up to that, there were reports of things like the amount of ebay employee listings shooting way up. I did find one such seller:
treeslothsales( 19405) who is currently showing 19423 listings as I post this.
(screencaps from when I first found it:   List    Item -Note the ebay employee disclaimer in listing)

But yet if you search ebay for "ebay employee" in the description, you only get 1634 results. (at the time of this post) Isn't that something? I guess that new search engine method ebay is working on must really be lame. (Also Search the completed items or take it to the tool at goofbay to find out more)
That was the only ebay employee listings I found. I saw a post about that on the ebay forums.

  I had also found the first incident of the 'sdc' listings, and posted at the CAPP forum, as seen in the video. You can go there and see the time on the screencaptures. You will also find some deleted   censored threads preserved there and livehelp 'explanations' (I usually post day to day stuff there, so check in once i n a while)

When you start doing the math, you see these had been going for a bit when they first were discovered. This overlapped the strike/boycott, and likely accounted for any increase in listing levels after it ended. There is talk of an alleged  'contingency plan'  by an alleged ebay insider/finance board  'pumper' (paid word of mouth advertiser) should listing counts fall too low.
here is a screencap of that post, and the entire thread, resized to 640 wide. You can see more of that person's 'handiwork' on the Yahoo! ebay finance message board, where it seems this person has some notoriety. UPDATE: see here

Moving on, I have a list of all the seller names reported for what it is worth. I do not have the time or the inkling to post every screencapture, item count, etc. This is for the Gov't or someone to look into.  This is bigger than an eight minute video and a thousand word post, or a thousand comment forum thread. Way bigger.

Some of these show as  NARU, a couple of them are still showing some live listings right now as I post this. (so much for the completed  'test' listings, as you will see) They all go to different usernames, again who cares what they are. If you are interested just click and find out.  I do not need to look at each pixel to see the entire picture, how about you?
*On March 5th I have now added a few screencaptures. There are more, many many more.

sdc_prod_9021_2 ( 0 )

sdc_prod_9452 ( 80)


sdc_prod_9391_43 ( 0 )

sdc_prod_9352_67 ( 927

sdc_prod_9090 ( 206)

sdc_prod_9074_35 ( 0 )

sdc_prod_434012 ( 0 )
eBay_Seller_sdc_prod_434012_35011_items_on_eBay_480.png

sdc_prod_409455_97 ( 104)

sdc_prod_310426 ( 0 )
eBay_Seller_sdc_prod_310426_21798_items_on_eBay_480.png

sdc_prod_305839_99 ( 7)
eBay_Seller _sdc_prod_305839_99_56_items_on_eBay_Mar1_480.png
Look here for bonus points! This one has increased between March 1st and March 5th from 56 to 148
sdc_prod_305839_99_148_items on eBay_480.png (Note time, March 5th)

sdc_prod_301013_74 ( 506)
eBay_Seller_sdc_prod_301013_7427067_ items_on_eBay_480.png


sdc_prod_310426 ( 0 )
sdc_prod_310426_21798 _items_eBay_480.png

sdc_prod_9124_14  (266)

You can also use the other search terms to see completed listings,  where they all seem to show the max ? 10,001 listings on every one I checked.

  It is mentioned that the fake listings are STILL rolling in, and can be found by going to the last page of a major category, then entering the last page number in the jump box at lower right of page. All the many that I found showed as 'invalid' as I looked just now.

And coming now to the ebay explanations. OH yes, you were just waiting for the comedy, yes?
On Saturday, this quote from Usher Lieberman was posted at AuctionBytes Blog
"This was a limited test that has run its course."

On Sunday then, a system announcement was made by ebay:
"Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused."

Of course, you can see what people think by reading those comments at the auctionbytes blog. I did post there twice myself.
Maybe I am just too stunned and amazed, or run down, because I still can't seem to laugh, even though I know this is truly one of the 'funniest' things I have ever seen in all my born days. Right up there with September 25th, 2007

  Forget ebay math, this episode makes all that look  normal. how about Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, and then the different branches of Arithmetic --Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

I see that even one of my heroes, commenter Ming the Merciless over at the auctionbytes comments area seems a little run down in mood compared to most of the time. Whew! This has been a draining experience for many of us no doubt. As you can tell.

It must be time to look for a new muse. Now that Ms Meg is gone, we all need a new object of our affections. (Say what you all want about Ms Meg, she may not have had any teeth, but she sure had a purty smile.)
 I may have found one. Just sort of noodling around a bit.
I have an overview of the conceptual proto-continuity. It needs work..
 Here are the main 2 audio and visual elements.
I have no doubt that Mr Donahoe will do his fair share to make this scenario a reality.
I am starting to laugh a little now. Let's see what happens next.

Don't touch those dials.

http://budmalcolm.bravejournal.com/entry/25607

For further, more serious and startling reading on this, I strongly suggest Doc's suspendedfromebay blog, and companyexposed blog.

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