"She hoped to make the money back. The answer came in a Christmas request from her grandchildren: “Hatchimals,” a popular interactive toy that arrived in an egg and “hatched” when rubbed. Five minutes of research convinced her that they were Generation Alpha’s answer to Cabbage Patch Kids. The retail price was $59.99, but high demand and low supply caused substantial markups online. In a four-day bidding frenzy, she bought 156 Hatchimal listings on eBay with an average price of $151, spending $23,595.31 in total. “Either I have big balls or no brains,” she emailed at the time, “or perhaps the two go together.” "

Uhhhhh

Yeah, that seemed weirdly out of left field, but she actually made $6,000 in profit at the end of it.

One of the comments puts out the possibility that the guy planted the bit about his grandmother being in the circus, which is.. quite believable. Certainly that was public information at the time. That puts the story under a whole new light, as that may have been crucial for her commitment. Hope she recovers some of her life back after this.

Sara Gruen isn't actually dead.

Wikipedia has a tl;dr of her involvement with the Charles Murdoch case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Gruen#Involvement_with_th...