On July 12th, Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer's plan of auctioning $480 million in unclaimed property on eBay hit the papers as it was officially launched after a week of testing.
The property, comprised of collectible coins, stamps and jewelry has been piled up over 39 years from financial institutions, insurance companies and other corporations. These must turn over abandoned property to the comptroller's office after three years of being unclaimed. While Maryland performs yearly public auctions as mandated, they only attract 100-150 people.
Now, Maryland is running out of storage space and is doing exactly what I do every once in a while, selling excess items on eBay. The auctions are already attracting more bidders and selling items previously unsold in their auctions. While "All money collected from auctioned items is kept for the original owner (or rightful heirs) and can be claimed at any time," fees collected by eBay for these transactions, aren't.
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