ETHICS and DOES IT WORK ANYWAY

What's shady about it? You bought it fair and square with the highest bid of all; you may do with it as you please. I don't think it'd be too profitable to offer it to the runner-up in the auction in which you bought the item, though -- he's a proxy bidder, after all, and would only want to pay a small amount more than you paid for it in all likelihood. Your better chance for a profit that would make all your efforts worthwhile would be to offer it on eBay at a price of your choosing. (You'd better be a pretty darn good judge of value, though, or you'll wind up holding the bag.) But I don't see anything in the least unethical about such actions.

Thanks !

I would agree that relisting the item yourself on eBay is the best way to accomplish the sale, and perfectly ethical, at that. Many people do precisely that; I see this with some of the books I buy.

I am not so sure about the first option (offering the item to the second-highest bidder) would be looked upon kindly by eBay. They may take the position that you would not have had access to that second-place bidder, except through seeing his name listed in the auction bid history. This is even more true when you consider that, in most cases, you would need to use the eBay e-mail system to contact the bidder. Consequently, they may see you using the auction and eBay e-mail systems for purposes other than which they were intended. Better to have your own auction.