Umaga handbag sold

The handbag used by Tana Umaga to hit a teammate was sold for well over $20,000 this evening when the auction for it closed on the Trade Me website.

After days of frantic bidding, several bids of $1 million or more had to be removed.

The final sale price was $22,800, to a bidder listed as Damion from Featherston who has been a Trade Me member since August 2005.

The auction, which closed at 7pm today, has been plagued by unrealistic bids and Trade Me has had to investigate and remove them where necessary.

While doubts remained over the legitimacy of bids in the tens of thousands of dollars, many have been from Trade Me members who have built up trusted trading profiles over the past couple of years.

Consumers Institute chief executive David Russell this morning said while some bids could be getting posted illegitimately, any money owed from a winning bid could be legally pursued.

"They're bound by the rules of Trade Me. If you make a bid and it's an open auction ... you've got to pay it."

He said it was possible that people were managing to get in and bid on someone else's behalf, but Trade Me should be able to isolate and eliminate such problems.

But if a genuine member was fooling around and had the leading bid when the auction closed; "it's all theirs".

It would become a civil case if the bidder reneged and it would be up to Trade Me and the seller to pursue it, Mr Russell said.

The number of views on the auction had exceeded 650,000 late this morning and the seller, who appeared on Campbell Live last night, had had an offer of free legal help if a winning bidder didn't front up with the money.

The handbag became famous when Umaga hit Chris Masoe over the head with it at a Christchurch pub early on Sunday morning.

Masoe had hit a patron and was subsequently fined $3000 by the New Zealand Rugby Union and Umaga was said to be diffusing the situation. The handbag owner's cellphone was broken during the incident and later replaced by Umaga.

Mr Russell said he doubted that bids of a few thousand dollars for the handbag would be genuine, let alone the dozens of higher bids.

- HERALD ONLINE STAFF, NZPA