Those eBayers who answered Bob Geldof's call to place 'impossible bids' on Live 8 tickets put up for auction have had their accounts suspended. The bidders placed up to £10m on the touted tickets before the site decided to force a withdrawal of the ticket sales, but now eBay has emailed those high bidders to say that their accounts have been frozen because they broke site rules. That means they will no longer be able to use the auction site and will be precluded from setting up a new account. One of the bidders told BBC news: "I want nothing to do with any company who rips off a charity. The terms and conditions for the tickets quite clearly state that they are not transferable." eBay explained that "Users who place hoax bids face two warnings from eBay and are then indefinitely suspended on the third," and added that the firm had no plans to make an exception for the Live 8 bidders.
As previously reported, the auction site initially refused to remove the Live 8 ticket listings on the grounds that selling on tickets of any kind is not illegal, but capitulated on Tuesday after "listening to customers," and not, apparently, in response to Bob Geldof's overwrought accusations of "sick profiteering", or pressure from music minister James Purnell who said he "wholeheartedly" shared Geldof's annoyance.