Any eBay legal experts here?

[CDNSushi]

Looks to me like this is an ebay shop purchase and not an auction one. I suspect that they are in the right to do this. It's a bit like going into a real shop, seeing something wrongly priced, being told so by the Assistant and offered the chance to have it at the proper price or not at all. eBay has some odd functions in its software sometimes and items listed can't always be changed, so they may have not done this deliberately but are correcting a mistake.

Unless it is REALLY unique, I'd be inclined to leave it and try to find another.

Good luck, Graham.

Point well taken, and I'll likely have to do that in the end. But I don't think your analogy is quite right. This is something that I recently studied in my business law course. In a bricks & mortar store, there a contract doesn't exist between me and the store when I take an item off the shelf and bring it to the till where they realize it was priced incorrectly. Me taking the item to the till constitutes an "offer" but there is no "acceptance" or "consideration" on the part of the shopkeeper. This situation is different.

When eBay informs me that by clicking "proceed" or "agree" or "ok" or whatever the button is, I am legally binding myself to purchase something, then to me that means I have entered into a legal contract. It also means to me that the seller has agreed to accept my offer and should not bar me from consummating the terms of the agreement afterward. If, after clicking "agree" I am bound to pay for the item I bought, then by the same token the seller should be bound to sell the item at the agreed-upon price. Otherwise, it's a simple (twisted) case of bait & switch.

This should actually all be covered by Article 2 of the UCC (uniform commercial code). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code

[Laird O'the Cowcaddens]

I agree with all that has been said by everyone;having said that,I suggest that you begin the dispute process and see it through to its culmination. I'm not a legal scholar, but I think that under English Common Law the phrase is YOU ARE GETTING HOSED. Is it possible that your being in Japan gives them the idea that they can stick it to you without fear of reprisal.