Proctor Journal

Payment on the $10,000 bid for a motorized chair made famous by being involved in a DWI accident did not materialize.

The winning bidder for the motorized lounge chair e-mailed the Proctor Police to say he was not going to buy it. Clayton Adler wrote: “I apologize, but there seems to be a mistake. I did not mean to bid this amount, as well as I cannot afford this. I am truly sorry for the mix up and the wasted time.”

His bid was $10,099.99.

Adler, 24, is a vice president of ExecTech in Cupertino, Calif. Up until the auction he had a 100 percent positive feedback rating. “I guess he lost that rating,” Proctor Police Chief Walter Wobig said.

Adler said his bid was definitely a mistake. “I truly apologize,” he stated. “I thought I had bid $1,500. Next thing I know, I must have bid $15G’s. It must have been under ‘automatic bid.’”

“I have been an eBay user for a long time and I have never done anything weird. I really apologize,” he added. “I heard about the chair from a friend who saw the story on a gossip site,” Adler explained.

Adler’s bid, made 28 hours before the auction ended, was the only one he made on the chair. Forty-one bidders placed 64 bids during the three-day auction.

Wobig said he would offer the chair to the next highest bidder. That bid was for $9,999.99.

The matter of non-payment by Adler has been turned over to City Attorney John Bray.

This is the second setback in the chair drama for the City of Proctor. Bids for the motorized chair reached $43,500, thanks to international media attention. Forty-eight bidders had made 96 bids. Over 120,000 viewed the auction and over 7,000 were watching the auction. Hours before bidding was scheduled to end, La-Z-boy got eBay to remove the listing because the chair was identified as a ‘La-Z-Boy style.’ La-Z-Boy spokespersons claimed that was not their intention.

The chair was then re-listed, but the bidding frenzy that marked the first effort never returned.