Pete - Holy Cow man, now I'm scum for getting a good deal at an AUCTION?

You say "Yep, its Ok to take advantage of someone else's mistake unless they discover their mistake. If they are none the wiser go ahead."

You're joking, right?

Here's what happened. I did my usual twice weekly eBay search for the word "Faro". (Another trade secret down the drain) I found a group of 35 Ivory chips. I figured I could average about $35.00 per chip on resale, so I placed my proxy bid at $22.50 per chip, and thought no more about it. I'm a chip dealer, I buy low and sell high. Got a problem with that?

When the auction ended, I got the End of Auction Notice, and realized I had won the auction for about $6.00 per chip. Obviously, I was delighted! I went back and looked again, and saw that he had placed them in the "antiques - pre-1900" category, and that he spelled Ivory as "Ivery". He emailed and thanked me for my winning bid, which was over double what his reserve price was, and I sent him a money order. We were both happy. I saw no reason to make him feel bad and point out he might have gotten a better price if his spelling was better.

So, I guess you're saying that I should have have emailed him when the auction ended and said "Look, I'm an antique chip dealer and the price I got these for was way too low, probably because you misspelled Ivory and/or put them in the wrong category, so I'm going to send you an extra $577.50 so Pete S. on the Chip Board won't publically question my ethics."

To drag this discussion back to where it started:

1. If a seller gets a better offer offline, or realizes he no longer wants to sell an item, he has every right to cancel all bids and end the auction early, and should not be criticised for doing so. This is according to eBay seller guidelines.

2. No contract is created by placing a bid on an active auction, a contract is only created when the auction ends. This also is according to eBay, and it's an eBay auction we're discussing.

If you feel differently, and want to argue points of law or morality, recognize that you cannot expect eBay users to automatically subscribe to your belief system. It's YOU that is trying to change the rules, not me.

Michael