I bring this question here because I think a lot of members have quite a lot of experience of buying & selling bike parts on eBay.

An item I bid on reached £139, while my maximum bid was £137.

A few days later, the seller contacted me to tell me that the highest bidder wasn't paying so he might offer it to me. I wrote back, asking how it would work and pointing out that if the non-paying highest bidder hadn't bid, I would have got the item for £103, £2 more than the next highest bidder.

I've just received a 2nd Chance Offer to buy the item for £137. Is that allowed? It certainly doesn't seem ethical to me.

FWIW, I've written back declining the offer and restating my thinking on it. This has happened to me once before in my 7 or 8 years of buying on eBay, about 5 years ago with a Campag Rally RD, and that time, when I pointed out the same points as on this occasion, the seller got quite shirty and complained he was only trying to do me a favour (!?).

There seems to be nothing on this situation on eBay and I was wondering if there was something I was ignoring or missing...