Ebay, Auction | featured news

EBay Inc reported holiday quarter results that just beat Wall Street expectations, but the e-commerce company also gave a cautious forecast for 2013. EBay shares climbed 1.7 percent to $53.80 in after-hours trading following the announcement. Expectations were high ahead of the results because sales data from outside sources suggested strong sales growth from eBay's online marketplace and a solid increase in transactions processed by the company's PayPal payments business.

Dateline: Dungeon and Dragons — if you're looking for a spell to aid you on your next adventure, traveler, then you're sorely out of luck. The great and powerful internet auction house eBay has henceforth banned all sales of wizardly enchantments and magic spells, even if you have a vacuum cleaner's worth of gold to offer.

U.S. prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into whether eBay Inc employees misappropriated confidential information from classified ad service Craigslist, according to a copy of a grand jury subpoena obtained by Reuters.

The description stated, "Halloween is only a few months away. Forget Freddy, Jason, Meyers, here's your chance to scare the *#&% out of everyone and win every costume contest with this amazing Tot Mom latex rubber mask, possibly the most frightening mask on the planet."

It's thought to be one of only two shrinkwrapped copies of the game still in existence.

After a three year investigation and countless complaints, a south Florida man will spend 5 1/2 years behind bars for running one of the largest eBay scams in the history of eBay. The details of the massive operation include, hundreds of auction accounts, multiple identities and constantly changing PO Boxes.

EBay's profit nearly quadrupled on strength in PayPal and the core marketplace business as well as a $1.4 billion gain from the selling a majority stake in Skype.

Internet auction and services company EBay Inc has reached a deal to sell its online telephony unit Skype to a group of private investors, the New York Times said, citing two people briefed on its plans.

GM and eBay will launch a pilot program Tuesday that will allow consumers to place online bids for new vehicles from GM dealers in California.

G.M. said it was forging a new partnership with eBay to sell new cars. But the auction site said that no deal had been reached.