This guy also phoned us to tell us he was going to get us taken off eBay.

• Under English law, no contract exists at an auction until the hammer falls, or in eBay's case a metaphorical hammer, and a vendor may withdraw the item from sale at any time up until the close of the auction. Even then there are a few conditions under which a valid contract may not exist or can be varied or avoided. We presume this applies in most countries and most legal systems. We do therefore have a legal right to cancel an auction before the end if we wish.If you as a bidder decide that you would prefer not to bid on our auctions, then that is your right and privilege.
  
• Ebay appear to acknowledge that vendors have a right to cancel before the hammer, and they provide a form for this purpose which can be found at :-
  http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction&...
  You will only be able to view it if you are logged on, and possibly only if you are registered as a seller, but it looks like this eBay End My Auction Early.
  This take you to a second screen:-
  and lastly to the third screen:-
  
• We are running a business, and we do aim to make a profit on things, although it is not always a "big profit". You could try looking at the page about the economics of selling a krugerrand on ebay. You will see that ebay often make more than we do. The figures for US gold eagles are similar, except that they cost us more.
• We could use a "reserve price" but this costs more, and doesn't guarantee that we will make a sale, in fact it reduces the likelihood of a sale because it increase the price we need to get after allowing for eBay's charges. You might think "So what, that's your problem", but this is shortsighted and you would be wrong. It would increase the price you would have to pay to buy the same coin from us. The only party to benefit would be eBay.
• The underlying gold price affects all our pricing on bullion items as all our buy and sell prices are based on the current spot prices. Some people with limited experience or intelligence may not understand this, others because they do not want to understand it. If we set a reserve price at the start of the auction and gold goes down, we may need to adjust the starting price downwards, and even then we may have missed a potential bidder. If the gold bullion price rises, we may need to increase the starting price, and it may be too late if there are already bids on the item. During the last 12 hours of any auction we are not able to make any changes to the item listing.
• Ebay say that they only provide a venue, and that they do not run auctions. It is perfectly reasonable for us to run our auctions in our own ways. We usually try to make our policies clear in our auction listings.
• We try to respect and adhere to eBay's listing policies, but their rules are written very ambiguously, and subject to interpretation.
• You are entitled to your own opinions whether it is right or wrong. If you don't like our policies or actions, then you are free to avoid bidding on our items. There is no need to send vitriolic emails, or to complain to ebay. Your actions are not in the general interests of the ebay community and its other users.
• You may take delight in noticing that we were recently suspended from ebay and all our auctions cancelled. This may be because of your complaint. One frustrating element about dealing with ebay is that they are very difficult to communicate with, and most communication is one way. Their email advising us about our account suspension is worded very ambiguously, and we have asked them orally and in writing for a precise reason. They have refused to do so orally, citing "legal reasons", it is possible that their reasons may be unsound, constitute an unfair contract term, or give us some other form of legal redress. We have yet to receive a written reply.
• We guess that the real reason you got upset is that you thought you were just about to get a bargain, and failed to do so. Psychologists call this frustration-rejection. We call it being a spoilt brat. Sadly a small proportion of ebayers seem driven by greed.