It depends on what the seller meant by selling them for $4000.

You are right, a new fridge column is $4500, so why someone would buy a used one for $4000 sounds suspicious. However if he sold the fridge and freezer columns togeter, which would cost $7000 new, I can see someone paying that for used. It would have been really unlikely, even in a no reserve auction that the Thermadors would have gone for a few hundred.

You are slso right in suspecting that he removed them from his foreclosed property, which is essentially stealing from the bank, so I would avoid that.

However in terms of the eBay auction, I am not sure he did anything wrong. Sellers generally reserve the right to end auctions early, particularly if they are also trying to sell the item locally. Antique dealers with real storefronts do this all the time.

It had been on there for five days without a single bid. I think he just got cold feet. I think you are right that it was within the eBay rules to pull it at his discretion. I have seen car listings say that they reserve the right to end the auction. However it seems like that shouldn't be allowed for a no reserve auction.

Summit makes a 24" wide all refrigerator for about $900 and Liebherr 24" panel ready starts at $2800.

There are a number of 24" wide refrigerator/freezers: Summit, Liebherr, plus Fagor, Blomberg, SMEG, (which has a tiny freezer so might work for you if you have freezer elsewhere), GE, LG (inexpensive), and a couple that aren't counterdepth by Danby, Frigidaire and others.

But you were ok with the situation as long as you thought *you* could buy it for $200? Seems to me this might not be a grievance you want to keep pushing.

i agree with palimpsest in that i don't think he did anything wrong. a seller can pull out whenever they choose. you're upset because you wanted to have the columns. i can see why. i paid just under $7K for my set and would have LOVED to have them for a few hundred dollars! you certainly can't blame the guy for taking the best price -wherever it comes from. but turning this into the requisition is just bad form. i wouldn't "report" to ebay over this. it's just silly.

OK guys you don't need to give me grief. Please note that in my 9:37 post I said that I now realize that it was a legal move. I did write eBay last night to ask if he could do that. I just didn't know he could. They haven't written me back but I was able to find out the answer on their website on my own. I still don't understand what the incentive is for a seller to put a reserve on an auction if he always has the option of pulling the sale if the bids don't go as high as he wants. Why would you pay extra for that if you can just stop the auction at will?

There are four ways really to price on eBay:

Start with an openly listed starting price so that the first offer essentially meets "reserve."

A hidden "reserve" price where you can start lower but until the reserve is hit, there is no sale. This way, people may be competing with unrealistic bids in competition with people making realistic bids, but it doesn't jump until someone's highest realistic bid hits the reserve.

No reserve, meaning the lot goes for whatever the high bid is.

A "Buy it Now/Best Offer" which means you can pay what the buyer is asking for it at the Buy it Now price if you are willing to pay this and don't want to go through the bidding process.

I think in Any case, the shadiest auctions to pull would be the Reserve Auctions when the reserve is met, or the Buy It Now if the price is met.

Why do people do no reserve auctions? To get people interested by being able to bid low, and hoping it will pick up. Some people will Never bid on a Reserve Auction.

Why do people do Reserve auctions instead of open pricing? People will bid and rebid on something that they May not instantly pay the reserve or open price on...they need to see what Other people are willing to pay. It gives them a sense of the value if they are not sure.

I am not trying to give you a hard time by pointing these things out, just trying to explain how things go on eBay. It is really unrealistic to think that you would have walked with the Thermador column for $200. He would have been better off donating it. However, he should probably have had a reasonable reserve or starting price on it himself.

I wouldn't agree that the seller did nothing wrong, if in fact he did strip these appliances from a foreclosed home. Ebay does not allow you to sell stuff you do not own. However, they will only take action if the real owner complains. Re-acting to third party complaints can be a very messy business.