Ananova:

An attempt by Jamie Oliver to auction his famous scooter for charity appears to have fallen victim to hoaxers.

The 28-year-old was said to be "amazed" when someone made a bid of £1 million for his Aprilia two-wheeler.

But the seven figure offer has apparently been retracted from internet auction site eBay.

However the bidding has continued to shoot up into the hundreds of thousands before falling back to around the £45,000 mark.

Jamie's spokesman Peter Berry said: "Whether it is people just bored on a Saturday afternoon, I don't know, but I got the impression eBay were looking at ways to work out who's the serious bidder and who isn't," Mr Berry said.

"It would seem that when it was slowly going up and up to £45,000 that was serious bidders and then when it started to go a bit loopy it was not serious bidders.

"It still looks as though it will be a decent amount of money."

A spokeswoman for eBay said they presumed the million pound bid had been retracted after communication between the buyer and seller.

"The seller would have contacted the buyer to ensure it was genuine and if the buyer decided to retract their bid I presume this is what has happened," she said.

"These things happen, it could have been an accident, I don't know why it was put on for that amount."