Thanks a lot for all your answers - you pretty much covered all my reactions. I'm just a private seller, nothing else. And no, I'm not interested in doing stuff outside eBay.  I think it's the tone of the queries that bothers me  - it's somewhat rude and disparaging (s/he wrote back and said they were asking because 'I can't imagine anyone wanting to buy a second hand X but if your price is reasonable I may buy it now') .  I figure, the point of an auction is to find a price!