How a $600 Kids Wagon Sparked a Petty Auction Showdown (and an Expensive Lesson for Bots)
Online auctions: a thrilling blend of suspense, strategy, and, if you’re lucky (or unlucky), a dash of pettiness. But what happens when you find yourself not dueling with another parent after a kid-hauling Jeep Wrangler wagon, but locked in a high-stakes showdown with a cold, relentless bot? One Redditor recently discovered the answer, and in doing so, delivered a delicious dose of petty revenge that left a bot (and possibly its owner) with a wallet much lighter than expected.
The tale began innocently enough—with a parent seeking a bargain and ending in a glorious, if mischievous, victory against the algorithms that increasingly rule our online lives. Let’s dig into the drama, the strategy, and the wild community reactions that made this story a viral hit.
The Setup: A $600 Jeep Wagon and a Suspicious Bidder
Our hero, u/SmallDickGnarly, stumbled onto a local online auction offering a kids’ Jeep Wrangler wagon—a souped-up stroller, not a real SUV, as they clarified after some confusion. MSRP? $600. Opening bid? Five bucks. As any thrifty parent would, the OP threw in a modest bid, then watched as the drama unfolded.
But something was off. Every time OP bid, a mysterious user immediately topped them by $0.75. “After the total came to about $90 the user was still ahead,” OP wrote. This wasn’t a normal bidding war; it was a relentless, robotic escalation. Time to turn the tables.
Petty Revenge: Beating the Bot at Its Own Game
OP’s strategy was simple: keep pushing the bid higher, tempting the bot to follow. As the auction neared its end, OP confessed, “I tossed up $150 and saw that the next one was sitting at $150.75 right after me. I ended up bidding more and more until eventually it hit the last 5 minutes and I got it up to around $770 and the bot still had it at $770.75.”
The bot (or auto-bid system, as some commenters would later debate) won the auction. But thanks to a hefty 20% auction fee and state tax, the winner would shell out close to $1,000 for a wagon worth $600. OP didn’t get the wagon—but they did get the sweet satisfaction of forcing a bot (or an overzealous auto-bidder) to dramatically overpay.
The Comments: Community Reactions, Auction War Stories, and Bot Debates
Reddit’s r/PettyRevenge community rallied around OP’s tale, delivering a mix of applause, strategic analysis, and their own stories of bot-fueled mischief. The top comment, from u/Hermit-Gardener, told a similar tale of Amazon book-selling warfare: by lowering their price in small increments, they lured a competitor’s auto-pricing bot into dropping a book’s price to $1—then bought it themselves, only to relist their own copy at full price. “That...is fucking brilliant,” another user cheered.
Others pointed out the prevalence—and the perils—of poorly configured bots. As u/9lobaldude quipped, “Lazy moron did set up a bot and forgot to define a maximum value, you made him overpay, nice petty revenge.” This sentiment echoed throughout the thread, with some noting that sellers or buyers who rely too heavily on automation can end up outsmarted by a little human creativity.
But not everyone was convinced this was truly a “bot.” Several auction veterans, like u/madbull73 and u/Beginning_Alps_1817, explained that many auction sites use automatic proxy bidding systems. “If someone places a bid for 990 the software will bid on their behalf only the increment that is set in the software,” explained u/LeeKinanus. In other words, the so-called bot might have just been an aggressive parent with a high max bid, or someone who didn’t set a reasonable upper limit.
Still, whether it was a human, a bot, or even the auction house itself (as u/LunarisTheOne slyly suggested), the result was the same: someone paid way too much for a kids’ wagon, and OP got to walk away with bragging rights (and a story for the ages).
Auction Antics: Tales of Petty Revenge and Algorithmic Chaos
OP’s story sparked a wave of auction war confessions. Some users gleefully described similar exploits—like u/CatlessBoyMom, who loves to watch “scammers bid against themselves while you wait for the items you want to close,” or u/pillsburyDONTboi, who once jacked up the price of fancy crystal just to watch an auto-bidder squirm.
Others added historical context: u/wacrover referenced Amazon’s “thermonuclear” price war with Diapers.com, and u/Mysterious-Tie7039 recalled the infamous “infinite money hack,” where authors exploited Amazon’s royalty miscalculations to donate proceeds to charity. These stories highlight both the dangers and the hilarious opportunities presented by automation gone awry.
Of course, a few commenters warned about playing with fire. What if the bot had stopped, leaving OP on the hook for a $1,000 wagon? “You could have been left holding the bag,” cautioned u/Jhoe96. But as the original poster admitted, “I gambled and it paid off.” Sometimes, a little risk is the price of sweet, sweet revenge.
The Takeaway: Don’t Set and Forget Your Bots—or Underestimate Human Pettiness
Whether you’re an auction addict or just a fan of internet mischief, this story offers a timeless lesson: never underestimate a determined human—or the power of pettiness. As automation grows, so too does the creativity of those willing to game the system. Maybe you’ll think twice before setting your next auto-bid, or maybe you’ll be inspired to try some petty revenge of your own.
Have you ever tangled with a bot or outsmarted an algorithm? Have your own tale of auction pettiness or technological trickery? Drop a comment below and join the conversation—after all, in the world of online auctions, the real prize is often the story you take home.
Original Reddit Post: I took a gamble and made a bot spend $170 more on a Jeep Wrangler Wagon than its original MSRP