@stable05 wrote:
My query is: What is to stop any seller getting an offer from a buyer, ending the listing using one of the excuses such as "Item no longer for sale" or "Item lost/broken" etc and then selling to the buyer privately?
The two scenarios are completely different.
If you end an item specifically so that you can then sell it outside of eBay, to a buyer who contacted you via eBay, it is a breach of policy, and selecting 'item is no longer available' is, well basically a lie. 😉
An item that ends 'naturally' is no longer being offered for sale on eBay, and as such the contract terms no longer apply, because they expire at the end of the agreed-upon timeframe. It's not a grey area, as the eBay rep attempted to suggest, as even with 'Good til' cancelled' listings, the contract terms apply until the seller ends the listing themselves (but it remains a policy breach to end an item specifically so it can be sold outside of eBay).
Member policies may apply to certain communication aspects, which obviously would make things difficult (if not impossible), but no site policies can apply to the item in question. They might frown on a buyer contacting a seller to ask about an item that's already ended, and they may have policies about members sharing contact info via eBay messages, but a seller has 0 obligation to make it available on eBay again in order to facilitate the purchase, and a buyer has 0 obligation to purchase via eBay if the item is not currently under any of eBay's site policies.
That being said, personally, I err on the side of caution 99% of the time. If a buyer contacts me about an ended item and it is still available, I only ever offer to relist it at X buy it now price - I was prepared to pay the fees before, so it's no skin off my nose to relist. As I do custom-made items as well, I get enquiries about items that basically don't even exist yet, let alone are listed on eBay, but even with those I walk a pretty straight line and just say I'll make it then list it on eBay. Sometimes they've purchased from me before, so have my PP email address and contact me that way, in which case eBay isn't even remotely involved and I just send an invoice if they decide to purchase.
