> I thought this was just common practice. I've bid on a lot of stuff on eBay
> that never reached the reserve. Those that I was high bidder on but didn't
> reach the reserve, the seller has always contacted me to see if I wanted to
> buy it at the reserve. This has happened dozens of times.
In this case, the seller offered it to me at less than the reserve. If
he is to be believed, his reserve was $100 + shipping, and his offer to
me was $90 including shipping. I'm not sure that I can see anything
really unethical here, or if it is unethical, it seems a fairly inefficient
way of being unethical. The seller has already paid $2.00 to eBay for
inserting the auction. By not selling he saves the $3.13 he would
pay to eBay for the sale, but risks not selling the lens (since he doesn't
know if I will take -- nor do I, come to think of it), or selling it for
less than he could have gotten in the auction (since he doesn't know
what my final bid was). In this case, he would have gotten a bad
deal ($76.00 - $3.13) if he had had no reserve, but he would have gotten
_more_ money if he had had a slightly lower reserve (assuming I buy
the lens at his new price, that is).
Steve Schaffner
sschaff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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