Lost and Found: Free CFLs from California

It's a sad moment when compact fluorescent lightbulbs freely distributed from California utility companies get sold on eBay. Rumor has it that some even appeared in a Reno hardware store.

The purloined lightbulbs bear stickers stating that they were subsidized by utilities, such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison, so they're easy to recognize. The utilities bought and distributed the free lightbulbs with money from Californians' electricity bills to try to save energy throughout the state. Now the utilities expect to get energy savings from only about 80 percent of the bulbs.

What kind of profit can even be made off this deal? And really, a pack of CFLs is not too expensive. Why even bother searching eBay and paying for shipment?