The only risk I know of on eBay is that your message may be termed 'spam' by the underbidder. I had this happen only once, apparently because the lot in question went for a ridicuously high amount and several people with the chip (including me) made offers to the other bidders. One guy complained to Safe Harbour and I got an email from them warning me not to send commercial email without permission from the bidder. I also got a note from the bidder in question and he was obviouly very hot, complaining about 'you chip guys', so I'm sure he got lots of mail.

I ignored it, and nothing else has come of it. I don't consider a single message on a specific subject to be spam, but didn't want to make a big deal of it with eBay. There was no feedback posted as a result of this.

I think what eBay is most concerned about is individuals who make up mailing list from the bidding results and continuously bomb them with sales mail. They did make it more difficult by removing email addresses and using internal bidder names in the results. Only registered eBay users can get the email address; but then, anyone can register so its mainly a psychological deterrent.

DonL