Naked chef's £1m scooter bid proves hoax

An attempt by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to auction his famous scooter for charity appeared to have fallen victim to hoaxers today.

The 28-year-old was said to be “amazed” when someone this morning made a bid of £1m (€1.48m) for his Aprilia two-wheeler, which is being sold on Internet auction site eBay.

But by this afternoon the seven figure offer had apparently been retracted.

However the bidding continued to shoot up into the hundreds of thousands before falling back to around the £45,000 (€67,000) mark.

Jamie’s spokesman Peter Berry said: “Whether it is people just bored on a Saturday afternoon, I don’t know, but I got the impression eBay were looking at ways to work out who’s the serious bidder and who isn’t,” Mr Berry said.

“It would seem that when it was slowly going up and up to £45,000 that was serious bidders and then when it started to go a bit loopy it was not serious bidders.

“It still looks as though it will be a decent amount of money.”

A spokeswoman for eBay said they presumed the million pound bid had been retracted after communication between the buyer and seller.

“The seller would have contacted the buyer to ensure it was genuine and if the buyer decided to retract their bid I presume this is what has happened,” she said.

“These things happen, it could have been an accident, I don’t know why it was put on for that amount.”

Jamie put his scooter on eBay earlier this week with a reserve to raise money for his Cheeky Chops charity which supports the training of the young chefs at his restaurant, Fifteen.

The auction will close on Wednesday night, coinciding with a charity auction.

On the website, Jamie is pictured with the three-year-old bike which has 841 miles on the clock and one month remaining on its MoT certificate.

In a greeting to potential bidders, he says: “I am selling my Aprilia Habana Custom Scooter. This was kindly donated to me by Aprilia and is the actual scooter that I ride to the restaurant Fifteen.

“As well as winning the scooter, I will also shout the lucky winner dinner for two at Fifteen where I will hand over the keys personally! You make it there and I’ll pay!”