Up4Sale.com was an online auction company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was acquired by eBay on July 16, 1998, and subsequently integrated into the company.The idea for Up4Sale dated to the early 1990s, when Rob Ratterman first noticed people using newsgroups to post electronic messages. The computerized message system was used like an informal classified ad. He noted what he saw in a journal, thinking one day it might provide the seed for a business.