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[Enigma]

I did a search and nothing came up. If old, blame it on the search listing or obscure thread title.

Anyway, is anyone trying to play this crap:

http://pages.ebay.com/treasurehunt/getclues.html

I just discovered it this morning and have wasted the last couple hours on it. I'm beginning to agree with the pissed off people on the Ebay forums in that the clues suck royal ass.

P.S. Here's a link to old auctions that were completed if you want clues as to what they looked like (Listing date, prices, etc.)

http://geocities.merseine.nu/~strzelec.pl/th/

 

[shuri]

So you have to buy random shit hoping to win 1000?! :lol

 

[Enigma]

No. If you find the right listing in a search, it'll lead you to an ebay auction with a big You've Won 1000 Dollars logo. You then hit the Buy It Now button (Costs nothing), to claim the 1st to see it and Ebay sends you 1000 to your PayPal account.

 

[Enigma]

Last 1000 Clue: An Axe to Pick by the Bay"

Correct answer: "gold metal antenna booster"

My answer: Fuck you, ebay. Eat shit.

 

[DarthWoo]

Well, if each clue is worth $1000, you can't expect them to be simple. But people are still getting them, so obviously they're not entirely meaningless.

 

[Enigma]

Well, if each clue is worth $1000, you can't expect them to be simple. But people are still getting them, so obviously they're not entirely meaningless.

Some of them you can look at in hindsight and kind of figure out, but try figuring them out when the answer isn't listed and it's completely random. (A couple were fairly obvious, but few).

As for people getting them, there's a strong sense on the Ebay boards that a lot of these auctions are being won by people who are just shopping and stumble upon them by sheer stupid luck.

 

[aoi tsuki]

i can't believe i'm wasting my last few hours of freedom before work on this...

Edit: i had thirty or so tabs open looking for items, and just when i thought i had won, i realized it was a screencap from one of the examples.

 

[border]

The problem is that even after you figure out the clue, you still just have to mindlessly sift through auctions until you've found a winner. "An axe to pick by the bay" would refer to the San Francisco/California gold rush. But the only way you would have gotten to the winning listing is by searching through every single response to a search for "gold metal" (and there are over 2000 listings).

The "Elemental Singing Group" in the unsolved clue is most likely Earth, Wind, and Fire. But an "earth wind fire" search brings up hundreds of listings. But what's more is that the listing might have something to do with the title of an EW&F song or album, not just the band's name. I suspect that is probably the case, since otherwise it would have been solved by someone just wading through the obvious search results. Of course, there's an outside chance they might be referring to some obscure band named Oxygen or Hydrogen or something :lol

So it's only intuitive up to a tiny point, and then it just becomes a contest of whoever wants to sink the most time into finding a needle in a haystack. This is probably the only way they can do it, otherwise everything would get immediately solved. I wouldn't be surprised though, if people haven't written some scripts to sort through all the searchs for them, though. Turn off image downloading and a script could probably fly through results looking for text that says "win" or "$1000" or whatever.

 

[pestul]

I wonder if the 'You've won a $1000 logo' has the same image file name every time.

..I can see myself getting some jail time over trying anything though.

 

[aoi tsuki]

i've come to the same conclusions. i kinda doubt that the auction itself would say anything pertaining to the contest, or that the winning image would be named something obvious, like treasurewinner.jpg.

i've noted that the sellers seem to have the same registration date of February 11th, but there's no way to search by join date.

 

[Enigma]

Well a couple guidelines: Use advanced search. Search for Buy It Now only auctions. And then for the search listings, there's NOT a PayPal logo next to the title. And once you have a lot, search by Newest listings 1st (They're not more than a day or so old).

aoi tsuki: That's hillarious about the tabs.

I hate this stupid game, but I can't stop. And tomorrow the prizes are 2000. So if I've pulled myself away, I might get rehooked because of that

Edit: And I had some really good 1850 theatre crap when I accidently closed them over the rush of the "Ace" question. And that damn bird was the 1st thing that popped into my mind. But I went right to the other obvious solutions. Back to 1850s Theatre, Alex... you bitch.

Second Edit: Border: On the rules section, it says the search function is only looking at the Title (The description page is being locked out from the search function). So they can put winner or anything else they want, it's not showing up in the search engine anyhow.

 

[pestul]

Well a couple guidelines: Use advanced search. Search for Buy It Now only auctions. And then for the search listings, there's NOT a PayPal logo next to the title. And once you have a lot, search by Newest listings 1st (They're not more than a day or so old).

aoi tsuki: That's hillarious about the tabs.

I hate this stupid game, but I can't stop. And tomorrow the prizes are 2000. So if I've pulled myself away, I might get rehooked because of that

The depressing part is that there at least 20,000 rabid people who possess the same advanced knowledge as you. Better odds than most lotteries I guess.. your finger might fall off from clicking though.

 

[Enigma]

I'm not saying these aren't common sense guidelines, but they're guidelines. No sense plowing through 3000 listings when you can narrow it down to a much smaller number with a couple of common sense things.

 

[border]

So they can put winner or anything else they want, it's not showing up in the search engine anyhow.

The point was that a script would be searching for the keywords in the source code of all the listing pages. Obviously you couldn't do it with the eBay search engine.

From the looks of the winning pages though, there is nothing to search for. They don't have any description....just the special image. Perhaps you would code the script to search for listing pages with no description.

 

[Enigma]

I quit. The 60's clue has been solved. 60s are to tye-dyes what "70s" are to "polyester dress". Without clues as to what kind of a riddle they're presenting, it absolutely retarded. You could spend your entire life searching ebay and never have gotten that one. It was up for a long time, and you can bet your ass some kook looking for vintage "70's dress" was the person who won that one. Shopping and pure luck to find it. Tells you how popular 70s dresses are that this one lasted that long.

 

[Tarazet]

Do they actually show up with a Buy It Now price of $1,000? That would make it easier still.

 

[border]

I wish they would post the explanation of how people were supposed to get from the clue to the answer.

Can someone tell me what "Elemental singing group" had to do with "Weathervane"?

 

[Enigma]

Do they actually show up with a Buy It Now price of $1,000? That would make it easier still.

No. The prices are all over the place (Hit the second link on top).

But this is like me running a raffle at GA. I tell everyone the clue is Super Mario 64. And when everyone loses and demands the answer, I tell them the question was: Name a game not published by Telegames. Does the clue answer the question? Yes. But it's so random no one would have ever guessed it.

 

[Tarazet]

That 19th-century theater puzzle just doesn't want to be solved. I've tried everything I could possibly think of, and no one has gotten it. (Edit: someone just got it. Bessie Smith Chattanooga CD?)

How funny would it be if someone made a fake winner's page and someone gave him $1000? :lol

 

[B'z-chan]

SONRAT: some people did make fake listings = permaban's on EBAY for life. You fuck with chu, CHU fuck with you. Some people are also spaming crap with fake auctions for clues and crap. Its really stupid.

Answers to some common questions:

They all are buy it now, various prices.

No feed back from seller.

You do not buy anything, once you see the picture you are the winner basically, but you must "buy it now" and confirm to win.

There is just the picture in the item description. And the picture i've seen there are two different kinds sitting in a ebayimage server. One for 1000 and one for 2000 which starts up 21st. You cant make a script to search for it as its just random everytime.

Best things to do:

Search for buy it now.

Narrow it down to new listings.

Use google and search key terms, if you come up with a ebay sponsored linke click and search. A few people won this way. It led them right to the prize.

Last but now least go and look at the forums on ebay:

Help Forum for the treasure quest

The CLUE board, best to go here and read what people have searched for.

I almost won a few nights ago and almost killed someone, just this close.

Good luck and remember tommorrow 2000 bucks instead of the normal 1000.

 

[karasu]

These clues are INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to win!

 

[Enigma]

That 19th-century theater puzzle just doesn't want to be solved. I've tried everything I could possibly think of, and no one has gotten it. (Edit: someone just got it. Bessie Smith Chattanooga CD?)

How funny would it be if someone made a fake winner's page and someone gave him $1000? :lol

I swear, if I could jump into my monitor and kill somebody at Ebay, I probably would. The time wasted researching mid's 1800 theatre for a fucking singer that wasn't even born till 1895 is abusd. Ebay better hope not a lot of people are actually playing this, because people are mad as hell. The only thing fun about the whole contest is reading some of the message boards.

Then again, maybe they're saving the puzzles that actually make sense for when the east coast goes to bed and the SF hippies have the board to themselves.

 

[karasu]

I wish they would post the explanation of how people were supposed to get from the clue to the answer.

Can someone tell me what "Elemental singing group" had to do with "Weathervane"?

Elemental SInging Goup = Earth Wind and Fire= elements=rain=weathervane. :/ I guess

 

[Enigma]

nm

 

[Manabanana]

Spin and win! All I can think of is Wheel of Fortune maybe?

Jesus, how many people can POSSIBLY be selling roulette wheels? : /

I know this so isn't worth the time, but I GOTTA!

Alright, looks like it's not wheel of fortune or roulette, according to the eBay boards.

 

[Mister Zimbu]

THIS CONTEST HAS NOW COST ME $20

My guess was actually the Big Six wheel that casinos have. Wasnt right, though. Didn't seem alot of people searched for it, however.

Is it true that none of the winning auctions accept Paypal? That would narrow it down a LOT.

 

[Tarazet]

They don't have the Paypal logo, and they also don't have a gallery picture (they all have a green camera icon, though, because they have the picture that tells you you've won the prize). There doesn't seem to be any particular trend to when they've opened; some of them were as much as two days old.

 

[Enigma]

I think the newer auctions have the PP logo now.

Casino poker chips is plain stupid. Enter that search in Ebay and you'll get over a 1000 hits (And that's if you entered the exact phrase).

I think that one was one by an ebay shopper.

 

[Tarazet]

I think that one was one by an ebay shopper.

That's probably what they want. And if you think about it, it doesn't make any sense for them to reward freeloaders. :/

 

[MaverickX9]

What time do they usually post the clues?

 

[Enigma]

That's probably what they want. And if you think about it, it doesn't make any sense for them to reward freeloaders. :/

No. It's a contest. The aim isn't to reward people who shop in sections where things sell for shit. If the aim was to blindly award (And not to get people to go on wild searches discovering things they've never seen before on Ebay), they could simply randomly pick 25 auctions a day as winners and give the seller and buyer 500 dollars each. This would spur people to actually buy and list more during this period (And I think everyone would be happier).

 

[bort]

This contest clues reminds me of that episode of south park where they find out earth is a reality show and the jeff goldblum character linking stuff together.

Jeff: There's a huge ship of some kind in Earth's orbit! But why? Wait a minute! Chaos theory!
Chef: Chaos theory??
Jeff: Chaos theory, ih wah, it was first thought of in the sixties. Sixty. That's the number of episodes they made of Punky Brewster before it was cancelled. Cancelled...
Chef: Huh?
Jeff: Don't you see? The show is over! The aliens are cancelling Earth!

Chef: We have to find a way to stop those aliens!
Jeff: Oh, their ship is massive! There's no way to stop it! Wait a minute, jackets!
Chef: Oh no.
Jeff: If people don't wear jackets they could get cold. A cold is caused by a virus. A viru- a computer virus! We could make a computer virus and send it to their ships to disable their computers!
Chef: That doesn't make any God-damned sense!

Jeff: Wait a minute! Butt sex!
Chef: Butt sex?
Jeff: Butt sex requires a lot of lubrication, right? Lubrication. Lubruh... Chupuh... Chupacabra 's the, the goat killer of Mexican folklore. Folklore is stories from the past that are often fictionalized. Fictionalized to heighten drama. Drama students! Students at colleges usally have bicycles! Bi, bian, binary. It's binary code!
Chef: Who's havin' butt sex?