Can a seller do this???Please advise...

[bounty007]

A seller has listed an item that I badly want on eBay for 0.99 with no reserve. I have placed a bid.
They have put in the description "reserve the right to remove this during auction"
I thought this was against the rules once there had been bids....
Please can any eBay experts advise....
T very much IA!

well it is a binding contract but if they refuse to sell an item there is little you can do except report and leave appropriate feedback.

They can 'legally' remove the bids from the item and cancel the auction at anytime AS LONG as there are more than 12 hours remaining on the auction.
If there are less than 12 hours then they cannot end the auction. In theory they are entering into a contract with you. HOWEVER if they decide not to sell it to you, then Im afraid apart from report them and leave appropriate fb then there isn't much you can do. Tis the same with buyers..when they don't pay we can't do owt about it apart from give them a non payer strike!

I have twice "won" auctions for largish items where the seller has stopped it (in an improper fashion) before the end. In each case I got an automatic e-mail from eBay which I responded to by paying, and each time got e-mails from the irate seller wondering what I was doing as I had not won the item.

I think it is very bad form to advertise an item elsewhere at the same time.

I realise that sometimes items can become unavailable because children break them or dogs chew them after listing, but I think you could probably report them for advertising that they are likely to cancel the auction before the end!

Seller has removed the listing....thought it was too good to be true! Thanks for all the advice