What's the eBay etiquette for the seller

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

I used to hate it when auctions ended early but I found that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Who's to say that a deal wasn't in process when a bid was placed? Does that mean the seller shouldn't follow through with the deal that was agreed upon?

Twice this year I've been lucky enough to pick up a few items when the seller ended the auction early. In the last case all I did was to ask the seller to let me know if he was going to end the auction to sell the item to someone off line. I never asked him to sell it to me. The seller said he'd be interested in selling the item at a specific price which I found very enticing and I purchased the card. In less than 24 hours the seller received several emails telling him how "foolish" and "stupid" he was for selling the card to me. To the sellers credit he followed through with the deal. I figured that it must have struck a few nerves but then I thought about it again and figured it has happened to me so many times (in the past) that I didn't feel bad at all. By the way, NOBODY had bid on the item prior to the deal being made. The other deal I got was when the item wasn't near the reserve price and the seller popped out a price that was very fair for the item so I purchased it (in that case there were a couple of bids on the item). The funny part was that the seller had their phone number in the item description and I was only trying to get information on the item, not purchase it out right. I had emailed the seller a few days before and never got a response so I decided to call them. Luckily I got the card at a reasonable price.

Etiquette? Good question - I suppose if you're going to start an auction you should let it go to the end. If you are a seller and you get several offers to end the auction early then that should be a message to let the auction go to the end, not end it early.