First of all my thoughts go out to you Rob, especially as this is my favourite model Autavia.
It was a beautiful watch & great buy, I had to bite my lip not to say anything that may jeopardise closing your transaction.

THEORY 1.
I too beleive there is a tendancy for some sellers to "go to school" after the facts of an ebay sale. Particularly if they have wrongly estimated the buy it now price and their item has sold with in minutes instead of days as they had expected. The seller then begins to google the watch and WHOH !! there is an entire forum full of people talking about the "bargain" that just slipped through the radar of some uninformed seller.
I dont beleive anyone from the forum has any malice in mind when they mention the odd "bargain" deal that occurs out in public BUT is our enthusiasm harming the chances of our fellow collectors that may have been the lucky winner of just such a deal.

THEORY 2.
Now this one is a little darker. This is not a personal attack but an observation. I dont want any follow up comments on this matter to start naming forum members or start finger pointing.
There may be a little more underhanded dealing taking place with ebay auctions than may seem evident at first glance. We are all aware that when stand out Heuer examples arrive on ebay there is often a flurry of private communication to the seller asking if there is a buy it now price OR indeed a financial offer made in order to close the auction out. This is in no way a new phenomenon but i have started to beleive there is a more devious practice where an auction runs its coarse & then after completion people are placing slighty higher offers to the seller and then the article is sold in an off ebay deal after the seller backs out of the auction deal. I feel i have been the losing victim in this situation on one occasion only to see a forum member displaying the same piece as a new arrival less than 3 weeks later.
Now i dont know if the member acted inappropriately & to be honest most of my anger/frustration is angled towards the seller who suddenly felt they had the right to back out of an honestly won auction but i would like to point out to people that we are a community, we know each other through our passion & there should be a sense of fair play towards all involved in our beloved hobby.

I know this is a heavy concept to deal with as for the most part we have a wonderful sense of comradery & support on this forum. There's not one of you out there i couldn't sit down and share a drink or a meal with and enjoy your company. I look forward to many more years joy & entertainment with you all here at OTD.

Thanks for listening to my rant - Darren

: One other scenario is that a collector arrived late to the party
: has contacted the seller and made an offer substantially higher
: than the Buyitnow price, for a deal outside ebay....sad but
: possible, in my experience...my two cent...

: Francesco