FACEBK and PAYPAL: Numberplates of dubious distinction?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 15 January 2012 17:11

Opinion and Analysis

Want to show your fellow Aussies that you have more dollars than sense? Then you'll be in the running to buy the FACEBK and PAYPAL number plates from Tai Tran, a Ballarat-based web-savant wanting a pretty penny for stamped car plates of metal.

You've got to hand it to Tai Tran - he had the sense, and the dollars, to relatively inexpensively buy Victorian number plates with the letters FACEBK and PAYPAL.

According to Fairfax Media, Mr Tran is now looking to cash in on these brand names, and is asking AUD $1.2 million for FACEBK and $1m for PAYPAL.

It reminds me of seeing a 'DOTCON' numberplate on a car in New South Wales some years ago after the dotcom crash.

The problem is, now that the prices for these number plates are so widely known, who wants to be the doofus driving around telling the world they have far more dollars than sense?

Naturally, Tai Tran is no fool, clearly seeing an opportunity to turn memorable number plates into cold hard cash, but presumably anyone who buys these numberplates - especially given they'll likely have little to do with either Facebook or Paypal - might need to have their head read.

I certainly hope Mr Tran is successful at selling his plates, for it is smart business sense to try and get as much money as possible for these modern day technological car adorning trinkets.

But in an age of fiscal austerity, why would anyone pay hundreds of thousands of even millions of dollars for a fancy numberplate?

That million dollars or two that both plates are demanding would be better off spent buying gold, silver, cheap real estate, hundreds of iPad 3s or something else.

Still, you have to hand it to Mr Tran - not only has he gained a tremendous amount of free publicity for himself and his web business - he may also soon have a bucket load of cash of his own from the sale of these fancy shmancy number plates.

Even if the plates sell for half the asking price, they'll have turned out to be a fantastic investment.

The only catch? They've yet to sell, and they've no doubt caused others in every state and territory of Australia to wonder if they can do the same.

So, if you don't mind broadcasting to everyone around you that you're absolutely loaded and have so much money that you can effortlessly drop $1 million on a numberplate'¦ Give Mr Tran a call, he's waiting for you.

Otherwise, think twice before splashing so much cash on something so inane.

Honestly, if you're that rich, do yourself a favour and think up a much more creative way to demonstrate your wealth and spend that money.

Or consider some philanthropy, in the tradition of US millionaires and billionaires.

That way, you can enjoy a legacy of dollars AND sense'¦ rather than now obviously extremely unoriginal number plates that will only serve to mark you as the person that will have made the clever Mr Tran Ballarat's most debonair millionaire.