although my item was a $125 Hunter floor fan. After I won I got an email saying it was out of stock and that it would take 3 days to get it in to ship. This miffed me considerably, but I let it go and said "ok". After FOUR more delays "it will only be another 3 days..." I finally asked for my money back. Got an email from them saying that the only way to do it and get ALL my money back was if they filed a "non-paying bidder" on me and refunded the money. Then later they would retract the negative feedback.

WTF??? I told them no way and that they were full of bullsh!t. So they file the non-paying bidder slap anyway. Needless to say, since they had my money, it all worked out and I got my money back, but then, in hindsight, after checking feedback, it appeared that the company made a regular process of advertising "xx in stock" then telling people that the item was on backorder. I (and a few others) complained to ebay about a seller offering items for auction without having them in possession, and about 2 weeks after I got my refund, the seller was no longer registered on ebay! Cool.

I'm sure all the non-pay-bidder stuff was some way for them to get money back for the listing and/or fees, but I don't play games like that. It pisses me off that people use eBay like that...apparently it is quite common.