Instant ruin: a lifetime of work down the drain due to 1 bad decision

[wacki]

Yesterday I stopped by what I thought was a hunting/fishing store. When I walked in 90% of the place was empty. There was a 71 year old lady that was supporting herself solely by selling crickets, worms, and other bait supplies. You could tell from looking at the walls and empty glass cases that the place used to be so much more. So I started talking to the lady and it turns out that she was getting ready to retire. She put up 300+ thousand dollars of guns, bows, and outdoor equipment up for auction. The problem was that the auctioneer was shady and sold everything for a mere 14K in a fraction of the time the auction was supposed to last. After a long legal battle and witnesses that wouldn't testify against "one of their own" or due to "conflicts of interest" she gave up and decided to sell crickets. This was 7 years ago.

Not the wisest of women but still a heart wrenching story. And one I spent a reasonable amount of time talking to my father-lawyer about. Apparently in some states you can't stop auctions once they've started. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] It's funny how badly some people can screw you if they know the law a lot better than you do.

But this brings me to the topic of this thread. What are some mistakes people have made that ended up costing them a lifetime of work or major hardship at least? A book full of short stories like this one would be interesting to read.

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. - Eleanor Roosevelt

[ImsaKidd]

I think a book of stories like this would be really depressing.

One that comes to mind is enron employees who had their entire retirement accounts in enron stock.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
I think a book of stories like this would be really depressing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but it would save so many people so much pain in the long run.

[wpr101]

I had a nightmare once that someone hacked my 401k... that would really suck.

[asofel]

[ QUOTE ]
I had a nightmare once that someone hacked my 401k... that would really suck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Speaking of which, could you contribute a higher % please, you're really not adding up here...

[DarkForceRising]

There really should be a secret government agency which focuses on the apprehension, torture and execution of the scumbags that do this kind of [censored] to old people.

[stabn]

That is a really common auctioneer scam. You have to be really careful with the smaller auction sites especially if you don't plan on attending.

[MicroBob]

I'm not sure I understand the whole scam because I don't know a thing about how auctions work.


What does the auctioneer get out of it?
Is he colluding with those who are purchasing the items and they are giving him extra bucks under the table in order to buy the stuff so cheaply?
Or it's just a bunch of friends of his and he let them have the items for super-cheap?

I'm an idiot so I need further explanation on this one.

[SamIAm]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure I understand the whole scam because I don't know a thing about how auctions work.


What does the auctioneer get out of it?
Is he colluding with those who are purchasing the items and they are giving him extra bucks under the table in order to buy the stuff so cheaply?
Or it's just a bunch of friends of his and he let them have the items for super-cheap?

I'm an idiot so I need further explanation on this one.

[/ QUOTE ]
Seems pretty straightforward. <ul type="square">[*]Woman hires Slimeball to sell stuff. (I expect he receives some percent of the sale price.)[*]Slimeball doesn't promote the auction, essentially bringing only his buddy to the show.[*]Buddy bids $0.01 for each item and wins.[*]Slimeball keeps his percentage of those pennies, gives the rest to the woman.[/list]

[ike]

I got second in the PCA for 860k and moved the money through neteller on the way to my bank account. 800k is stuck. Hopefully it all works out, but if it doesn't I may not only be out nearly a mill, I'm probably still expected to pay taxes on it.