Canceled Krucoff Auction Scandalmongering
Chris Mohney · 10/16/06 05:25PMYou think it's over? It's only over when Andrew Krucoff (and his swarm of parasitical pro bono attorneys) say it's over. To recap, friendly Gawker ghost Krucoff won an eBay auction for lunch with Architectural Digest's Katherine Scully. The auction was arranged to benefit a charity called Alpha Workshops, which trains people with HIV in the "decorative arts." However, after winning the auction and paying up, Krucoff was notified by Paypal — days later — that the lunch was no longer available, and his money was refunded. No further explanation has been forthcoming. But given the suspicion that the auction might have been scotched due to Krucoff's tempestuous history with AD owner Conde Nast, the man is in no mood to take a form rejection lying down. Instead, there is hushed, urgent, accusatory whispering about restraint of trade, legal recourse, and loss of work — in other words, can we polish up a teapot for this tempest? The faceless folk at eBay assure that "appropriate action" has been taken after the auction cancellation, and Alpha Workshops appears to have dropped out of the eBay auction business. Let's hope that if the charity wouldn't take Krucoff's money, they at least took Conde Nast's to kill the deal.