TradeMe farm-for-tractor deal falls through

ALL THIS AND... The Holland's Southland farm and the tractor that it comes with.

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The couple who listed their tractor for a dollar on TradeMe and offered to throw in their farm for free have been left "furious" after the winning bidder was denied finance by his bank and the sale fell through.

Gore couple Shelley and Allan Holland listed their farm, valued at $260,000, two weeks ago on the back of a tractor sale on auction website TradeMe.

The old red tractor was listed with a $1 reserve in the auction which expired last night, with an 8.1 hectare farm in the Catlins thrown in for free. Of the proceeds, $10,000 was to be given to charity.

Owner Shelly Holland said they had been left feeling gutted.

"I feel really embarrassed, incredibly embarrassed and I feel belittled and just made a total fool of really. We couldn't have been any more upfront and honest if we tried because where we come from you're normally straight up and honest - a hand shake's a hand shake."

She said that with the large amount of interest and publicity in the auction, she had not expected any problems with the sale.

TradeMe business manager Mike O'Donnell said all of the top bidders had been contacted before the close of the sale, to ensure bids were legitimate. They had spoken to the eventual winner, Wainuiomata man Lance Karanga, twice, he said.

While Mr Karanga had appeared genuine when TradeMe spoke to him, his bank had declined him the financing to finalise the sale today, Mr O'Donnell said.

Mr Karanga said today that he had not misled the Hollands. He told Stuff.co.nz that he was serious about the sale.

He was "really pissed off" about the way things had transpired, but said he had been instructed by his lawyer not to comment.

"I'm not allowed to go into details at the moment."

Mrs Holland said they had emailed the auction winner to congratulate him earlier today, and had then received a string of non-committal responses culminating in Mr Karanga telling them he had been instructed not to comment.

She said Mr Karanga had taken the bidding from $233,032 to $250,000 in a move she called "a bloody stink thing to do".

"It's not just us. We've still got our land, we're no worse off than where we started ... but it's all the people that we promised money to. We wanted to give $10,000 to some people that we thought really deserved it because people had been so overwhelming with the auction and we had such an incredible response."

"And now what do we do? We are just absolutely gutted - totally and utterly gutted."

The couple was disappointed for people they had offered to support out of their earnings, including one boy named Ollie whose plight had come up in the question-and-answer section of the auction. Ollie needs medical treatment in the United States.

She said the feedback on the auction had been overwhelmingly positive and there had been no negative feedback. They had even received fan mail, emails and phone calls wishing them well.

Meanwhile, Mr O'Donnell said TradeMe had contacted all other bidders to tell them the sale had fallen through and encouraging them to get in contact with the Hollands if they were still interested.

"Should Shelly and Allan wish to take legal action against him, we've got an audit trail of his bidding and of the contact that we made to him to confirm his buying status."

Mrs Holland said legal action was not being considered at this stage.

Mr Karanga had had his TradeMe membership terminated.

- © Fairfax NZ News