Direct sales are an abuse that seems to be ignored by ebay. It is extremely hard to prove.
Ebay also provides the means to carry out these off line deals with the option for a seller to end an auction for a variety of reasons. When one sees the statement " Auction ended early because the item is no longer available" it's a safe bet someone made a direct purchase of the item. When an item has no bids it's much easier for a seller to make such a deal. Ending an auction with bids because of a great offer is not permitted by ebay but rarely have I seen any action by Safeharbor.

What is the frequency of these abuses? It seems it is happening more and more all the time. One seller had a Circus Circus clown error improperly listed. I contacted the seller to inform him of his mistake. There were no bids at this time. He informed me he had received 20 seperate emails making direct offers. He refused and allowed the auction to continue. An honest seller. It does make one wonder about the ethics of many of the strike collectors. On the other hand there may be no need to wonder.

Tom