It's all a matter of degree. The $450 empeg unit is not outrageous (though selling before taking possession is tacky), but what would you think of a tuner module with a starting bid price of $699?

I would think that anyone who is willing to pay that much must really want a tuner.

I don't have a problem with that either. I can go to the store, buy the last 10 bunches of bananas left in my town, and sell them on the street corner for $20 per banana. If someone REALLY wants a banana, and wants to pay $20 for it, that's their own dumb fault? Yes, it's keeping your average person from getting bananas, but they had their chances to go to the store and get the bananas when they were plentiful. By not buying the bananas when they were there, they took the risk that, in the future, all the bananas would be gone.

Which is where we're at with the tuners. Those who didn't buy before at the very reasonable price of $99 are now in danger of not getting tuners. The real problem is not someone who might buy the last 10 tuners, rather, it's the fact that so few tuners were originally made. At least some of this falls into the responsibility of Sonic Blue, and possibly someone from Empeg, depending on who decided to not order another batch of tuners, or to make so few in the first batch, or whatever.

But you are right, selling something on EBay without actually having it in your hands is despicable. That part I can't agree with, and it's probably against EBay's terms of service.