Taking Advantage of Misspelling...

You've gotta love capitalism: if there's any way to make money, people will find it - and that includes exploiting design flaws. In this case, the design flaw is the fact that search engines on eBay and other auction sites are very unforgiving of typos - and the way of making money is by searching for common typos in product listings. It makes sense that someone who erroneously lists a "flat screen moniter" for sale is going to get fewer bidders, because those searching for "monitors" aren't going to see it. The typo-searcher can pick up the product at a lower price - and maybe even resell it for a more realistic market value. Some clever folks have picked up on this, and created tools that specifically search for common typo or misspelled variations of whatever you're looking for - Auction Bloopers and the less-catchily-named eBay Auctions Misspelled Search. Of course, an irony of these services is that if they work too well and become too popular, they'll become useless - but in the meantime, get it while the gettin's good!
[via Lifehacker]