"Peter Gottlieb" writes:

It is the reserve.

In your world maybe. Not in eBay.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/buyer-reserve.html

Different name, same effect.

Except that it doesn't have the same effect.

If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck,
looks like a duck...

So you're blaming the guy for correctly using a well-defined word
for the community in which he's dealing to differentiate between
two very different things? That's an especially interesting
attitude from a pilot.

Do you think it's fine when people say "the airplane stalled" for
"the engine stopped"?

I recently bought my first item on eBay. There was no reserve and
the starting bid was $750. It didn't take me too long to figure
out what that meant and I didn't whine about the use of "reserve"
to mean exactly what it means.

What would you call it? "Peter's super secret low price"?

--kyler