Is this some sort of scam?

The old adage about if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, seems to apply universally. As does, you get what you pay for, and, there’s one born every minute, etc. Kudos for bailing; don’t feed the trolls (with your own money at least).

But like Timex, I do regret the loss of the entertainment value we would have received.

I believe it would have worked itself out to the same approximate ending, actually. Just got this from ebay.com:

Heh, yeah, this was probably inevitable…

What’s that again, TANSTAAFL