This has been going on for a long time on eBay. Believe it or not, it is actually prohibited, and at least at one point, would get you thrown off of eBay. Reason is that people artificially price the item low, and then make up for it by charging high (or in this case, insane) prices for shipping. On eBay, fees were (maybe still are) calculated from the final selling price of the item, NOT including shipping costs. So, if I had a $1000 item, and listed it for $200 and it sold for that $200, eBay's fees would get calculated on the $200 final value, not the $1000 dollar value. The listing fees would also be lower for a $200 item vs. a $1000 item. Now, to make up for the cheaper price, I charge $800 for shipping. It seems to be be happening more and more often, and I don't know why eBay doesn't try to control this, but its their web site, and their revenue stream, so what do I know? It did used to take a complaint by the buyer to get eBay to act on something like this, but overall, to the buyer, it doesn't make a difference, the amount they pay is the same.