Letters to Ebay: Hilarious Auctions, Crazy Emails, and Bongos for Grandma

by Art Farkas

By day, Paul Meadors is a fifth grade teacher in a small California town. By night, he trolls the millions of items for sale on eBay, posing as his alter ego Art Farkas, and catching sellers off guard with his ludicrous and bizarre questions about their auctions. As he amusingly demonstrates time and time again, even in today's hyper-vigilant and impersonal digital world, the spirit of human salesmanship lives on, no matter how outrageous the question or request. For example, Art asks the seller of a set of bongo drums if there would be a way to attach them to his grandmother's back so that she could take them to the corner and play on the street to earn her rent money--which elicits a sincere, yet bitingly humorous response. From the entertaining auctions themselves, to Paul's loony letters and the serious responses they provoke, LETTERS TO eBAY provides a fascinating and humourous glimpse into the strange world of eBay and those who dwell within.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2007

About the author

Paul Meadors lives in Fresno, California with his wife and three daughters and was once given detention in high school for making hawk calls while perched on a desk. He is a fifth grade teacher who started writing crazy, wacky questions to eBay vendors concerning their items. It quickly steamrolled into an obsession and is now chronicled in the book LETTERS TO EBAY. It's map-capped fun to the nth degree!"

Reviews

[Marjanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically one big practical joke. The author emailed various eBay sellers with bizarre stories and questions about the things they were selling. There were some that were just dumb, though there were several that had me laughing out loud. This is a short read and would be good for anyone looking for a laugh.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stars: 3

My dad somehow knows the author and really pushed for me to read this book (my dad loves it and talks about it all the time). I found it pretty enjoyable. I was mostly impressed by how the author came up with creative absurd questions to ask people.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had its moments of being funny. Not the best comedy book, but certainly isn't the worst. Solid 3/5.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and thought it was hysterically funny. The author "Art Farkas" is actually a school teacher, Paul Meadors, who had the idea to send e-mails asking questions about actual items being sold on eBay, silly/bizarre/slightly creepy questions depending on the item, and see what kind of reaction he got. Mostly, the sellers responded seriously, which added to the humor. "Farkas" includes a photo and the seller's original description of the item exactly as it appeared on eBay.

As someone who has sold a few items on eBay many years ago myself, I appreciated the seller's efforts to still treat these inane questions seriously and respond with dignity. While he's no Ted L. Nancy (the king of books about bizarre letters-- Nancy's specialty is writing to large corporations and heads of state of various countries), I enjoyed the book because his questions, although usually ridiculous, contained just enough sincerity that the seller usually didn't dare assume he was a crackpot and on several occasions, went so far as to offer advice on the problems Farkas would describe. My kind of humor, but probably not for everybody.

[Susan Hogue-Staley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my goodness, this book is wacky, funny, crazy. One night the author had to babysit, and he got bored of watching "Elmo" videos with his kies and he got on eBay. He noticed all types of detailed and odd exchanges going back and forth between buyer and seller regarding out-of-the-ordinary items. So he set up an alter-ego and began his farce of writing zany, fabricated letters to the buyers. What is also funny is some of the sellers who do have a sense of humor, and cleverly write him back!

[Judi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave this book 2 stars for coming up with the idea, which in itself is fairly funny. the stories are too far fetched and most of them weren't all that funny. the fact that buyers are willing to sell their products for any use really shocked me. Even the seller offering a bird feeder, to be used by the "buyer" to fill with alcohol to get birds drunk, bothered me. I wouldn't recommend this book for its contents!

[Maria Elmvang · Rating 1 out of 5]

A funny idea, but not very well executed. The book got much too repetitive with several of the letters using the same deliberately dumb questions and sounding a lot alike.

I gave the book away without finishing it. The 1 star rating may be a bit harsh for what I did read, but I figure that any book I can't/don't finish should automatically get 1 star.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could have been really funny. The idea is there, but this guy seemed to just play the safe side of things and make it a little too PBS for me. It wasn't very funny. It sat in my bathroom for months, and even with NOTHING else to read in there, it didn't get touched by anyone. HA HA!!

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I thought it would be. Didn't realize they were ridiculous questions all made up by the same person. Disappointing...........

[Cheryl]

Actually ...Jim is reading this to me...at least the ones that are too funny to keep to himself!

[Jenette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clever, creative and hilarious!

[Nicholas Persky]

Hysterical book. This features letters to eBay sellers regarding their products with funny twists. Highly recommend to anyone who likes to laugh.

[KJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my top 2 favorite books of all time. If laughter adds years to your life, I'm gonna get to be really old because of this book.

[Michael Lee Howard -Mayhew · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was funny in concept but the letters begin to sounds all the same and just plain silly. I wish that it was a little more follow-up. The 1st half made me giggle but than was yawning a bit.