Backlash over eBay Blue Peter badge auction
Monday, 27 Mar 2006 14:39
Backlash over eBay Blue Peter badge auction
One of the UK's top visitor attractions is considering ending privileges for Blue Peter badge holders after a number of the classic kids TV prizes were put up for sale on internet auction site eBay.
Edinburgh Zoo is planning to stop letting badge holders in for free after a number of owners of the badges advertised them on eBay.
At present, 19 badges handed out by the evergreen BBC show are currently up for grabs on the site, with the original entry, posted by a seller who calls himself George and claims to be retired, currently attracting a bid of £84.
George, who goes by the username Kizzyrabbit, advertises the badge as "genuine", and "won in 2004", and boasts that it "will gain free entry for badge holders under 16 into many places such as museums, stately homes and exhibitions".
This sales pitch has been met with an angry backlash from the programme's producers, celebrities and eBay customers, with one irate user telling George: "For this unholy act you will surely burn in hell."
Joining in the middle-class revolt, Blue Peter editor Richard Marson also condemned the sale of the badges and stressed that he was monitoring the situation.
"We know how hard children work to earn a badge, and we are doing our best to ensure that this long-standing Blue Peter institution is not undermined," he told BBC News.
The criticism over the sale of Blue Peter badges is the latest in a series of controversial incidents involving eBay over the past year.
Last summer, Live8 organiser and self-styled rock messiah Bob Geldof savaged the site after it emerged that tickets for the charity concert in London's Hyde Park were being sold on eBay and were eventually withdrawn from auction.
The tickets had been issued free of charge through a text message ballot system aimed at raising money to tackle global poverty.
"It is filthy money made on the back of the poorest people on the planet - stick it where it belongs," Geldof said.
The auction site has so far not commented on the Blue Peter sale.
About 10,000 badges are awarded by the cult show every year to viewers who perform good deeds or contribute artwork, videos or ideas which are shown on the programme.
The badges entitle the holder to free entry to hundreds of visitor attractions up and down the country and have long been the object of parental admiration - and playground ridicule.
