Giving It All Away

The fall of Lehman Brothers led to a world credit crisis and a recession with huge financial consequences across the globe. But what happened to those traders who lost their jobs when Lehman Brothers fell?

Mergers and Acquisitions expert Nick Dickreuter helped broker billion dollar deals during his five year spell at Lehman Brothers.

But as his former co-workers scrambled to find new jobs when the bank went bust he got busy online.

Dickreuter created a website called Psychoauction.com which he told friends would be as big as eBay.

He then listed hundreds of lots for sale – many of which were cash sums ranging from $20 to $1000.

Sadly for Dickreuter his site could not attract anything like the traffic of eBay – and his cash lots ended up selling for as little as one cent each.

Yet the former trader remains convinced his site can work and continues to giveaway huge sums of cash along with gadgets like laptops and iPhones – all for pennies.

He said: “Psychoauction.com is simply the next generation in online auction sites. It is true that some early users are able to pick up items such as $20 bills and gadgets for a few cents but once the site attracts more users there will be more bidders too.”

However his optimism was not shared by those close to him with at least one friend begging him to wind the site up.

The friend, who asked not to be named, said: “Nicolas is a lovely guy but he’s really had a meltdown with this psycho auction site. He’s used to dealing with billions of dollars but he doesn’t realise you just can’t give money away like that in the real world.

“The closure of Lehman Brothers hit him very hard. It’s like he’s lost all respect for money. How he ever expects to make anything from this website is a mystery to me.”

Dickreuter’s site www.psychoauction.comallows users to bid for items – such as twenty dollar bills – for as little as 1c with new users getting $3 worth of free bids when registering at the site.

He is already understood to have given away cash and goods worth thousands of dollars since launching the site – which he believes will one day rival web giant eBay.

Dickreuter said: “I know some of my friends are concerned but I can assure you I do know what I am doing. I am prepared to use loss leaders to bring in traffic and make the site profitable in the long term.”

Items sold recently on the site included a new iphone for 60cents, a Bose sound system for $1.60 and a twenty dollar bill for 13c. Some of the site’s users are understood to be selling on their purchases through eBay.

ENDS

More information and images:

Steve McComish

[email protected]  

www.londonpragency.com

Subjects