Eunice S. Yi ’04, who had a ticket she did not need, gave hers away for free over the Winthrop e-mail list.

“I got an e-mail saying ‘don’t be so stupid as to put it on eBay,’” she said. “More of my family couldn’t come, so I figured I might as well help someone out who needed it.”

A 2002 article in the Harvard Gazette about an otherwise unidentified man named “Jim” who wanted to surprise his graduating ex-girlfriend with flowers mentions that he procured his Commencement ticket on eBay, but the author does not make reference to any legal or disciplinary action taken against him.

—Staff writer Leon Neyfakh can be reached at neyfakh@fas.harvard.edu.