John,
I sent the guy on ebay who had "9 available" a question. I asked if they were available for immediate shipping. Finally got a response. He responded that "we are restocking those. They will not be available for a while."
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When they list them as available, with a "buy it now" price, you would normally pay for the item and the seller would have your money before you find out he doesn't even have it available to sell it to you. That happened to me when I bought an LED light bar from an Ebay seller last week.
I think that is even worse than the fly shop that lists an item in their catalog or online when the item is out of stock. In those cases they may or may not take your money in advance, whereas on Ebay they get your money upfront, unless you ask them a question like you did, which I don't think is normally done like you did in this instance.
That is exactly my point. They (in this example, the eBay seller) are, in my opinion, misleading the potential buyer.
I think the proof is that you suggested the eBay seller because he had a bunch "available". Well, they really were not available.