For the last 2 days, the AuctionCities.com (formerly Bidway.com and Bidbay.com) web site has been unavailable.

No announcement has been made, and no news releases have been filed under the AUCC.PK trading name.

Could this be the end of founder George Tannous' eBay competitor, as he called it?

AuctionCities.com was originally known as Bidbay.com, and then Bidway.com after eBay sued, or threatened to sue, for having a too similar a name to them. Poor Tannous thought the publicity would launch his web site into the stratosphere, but it never happened.

He then tried to relaunch AuctionDiner as a "multi level marketing auction site", using a patent he had "purchased" on the process and delivery of this marketing plan. That may have made a little money for a few people (George), but not many others.

George Tannous also bought AuctionDiner.com, a message board that "Sheryl" and "Buffalo" successfully ran for a while. AuctionDiner was to be transformed into some kind of auction messaging portal at Bidway, but it never materialized. Supposedly, George started a "real" Diner in the Caifornia area that Bidway was located, but I don't think anybody got a confirmation on this.

At one point, Crazy George issued a cease and desist order to AOL and Google for violating Bidway's "provisional patent" on shopping by zip code..

George eventually sold Bidway, shopyourzipcode.com, and other lame sites to some poor pigeon who's name escapes me, but Bidway.com and AuctionCities.com will forever be linked to the troubled soul George Tannous.

Eventually, George was convicted of securities fraud in February of last year.

More information here in the forum
http://www.sneakydave.com/forum/index.php/topic,2099.0.html