One-month-old baby girl put up for sale on eBay for 5,000 euros

A baby girl was put up for sale on eBay with a variety of photos showing her sleeping in different outfits.

Police are investigating after the one-month-old infant, called Maria, was listed with an asking price of 5,000 euros (around £4,510).

According to the listing, which was taken down by the auction site within half an hour, Maria lives in the city of Duisburg in western Germany’s state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The seller titled the advert: ‘Child, 40 days old named Maria for sale.’

It included photographs of the dark-haired baby wearing a variety of sleepsuits.

The listing quickly went viral on social media and internet forums where users were worried for the safety of the child and scandalised that somebody would post something like this.

It is not yet clear whether the eBay seller really wanted to make money out of the baby or whether it was supposed to be a joke.

eBay spokesman Pierre Du Bois said the company removed the listing and informed the police as soon as they were aware of the matter.

He said: ‘We received a lot of complaints from users and we immediately pursued the matter. In such a case, we provide the authorities with all available information.’

Mr Du Bois said that eBay suffered from its fair share of hoax listings including both bad jokes and attempts to defraud users.

‘We immediately ban these providers. We have specially trained teams which keep track on such cases and quickly react,’ he said.