Episode 724: Cat Scam

Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of Snuggly Cat Courtesy of Snuggly Cat

Note: This episode originally ran in 2016.

Fred and Natasha Ruckel invented a cat toy called the Ripple Rug. It's like a scrunched up doormat with holes in it, and for cats it's like going to Disneyland. When the Ruckels put it up for sale on Amazon, it started selling well. It was a solid business. Then one day, Fred noticed that the Ripple Rug was also on sale on eBay--for twenty dollars more.

Planet Money #724: Cat Scam Cat Scam Listen · 23:00 23:00

It looked like his product. It looked like he was selling it. But he had never posted it on eBay. IT was a case of cat toy arbitrage. The eBay sellers weren't changing the original Ripple Rug, and Frank didn't think they were adding any value. They were just jacking up the price and pocketing the difference.

This is a classic middleman scheme. It's also a scheme that could only happen on the Internet. But the Internet was supposed to get rid of the middleman. Instead, middlemen are stronger than ever. The biggest companies on the internet are middlemen. Today on the show: Why middlemen are taking over the global economy, why there's very little anyone can do about it, and why that could be a good thing.

Check out the article by Jason Feifer in Entrepreneur magazine, which inspired our episode.

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