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Bosses at eBay said that the ad was meant to show generic items available on the site, which is why they did not include brand names or product numbers, and that hyperlinks from the ad led to a search results page of products related to the depicted items.

They said that most users of the site would realise that the ad was not meant to create an expectation that the exact items were available on the site, because eBay was not a retailer and did not control the supply of items listed on the site.

They added that they had used this kind of advertising for years, and that this was the first complaint they had received.

They also showed that when the ad was running, a coffee machine had been sold for £75, and that a retro chair had been available at the fixed price of £45, and provided other examples of similar products that had been available.

eBay said they always checked the stated prices when running this kind of advertising campaign to make sure that they reflected the market prices available on the eBay website, and that because there were more than 50 million items on the site at any one time, the complainant might not have been able to find them even if they were available, and that they intended to make it easier for buyers to find items on the site.

But the ASA upheld the complaint, saying that the coffee machine and the retro chair had only been available for some of the time that the ad was running, which was why the complainant had not been able to find them.

They also said that while most people understood that the availability of items was limited, the ad was misleading because people might think it referred to specific items.

An ASA spokesman said: "We considered that consumers were likely to understand the text and pictures in the ad to refer to specific items available to purchase on eBay at the time the ad appeared because, for example, the text stated "coffee machine" and showed a picture of a specific designer coffee machine.

"We considered that most consumers would not interpret the ad as a reference to generic items available at the stated price, for example coffee machines in general, instead we considered most consumers would click on the links in the ad and expect to be able to buy the specific product for the stated price.

"We considered, therefore, that all the items depicted in the ad should have been available for the whole time the ad appeared and, as soon as the items were no longer available, the ad should have been withdrawn.

"Because eBay had not demonstrated that the specific coffee machine and chair depicted were available for the whole time the ad appeared, we concluded that the ad was misleading."

The ASA warned eBay either to make it clear that the were referring to generic items in future ads, or withdraw them when the items had been sold