Originally Posted by
20grit
I just bought a mountain bike off ebay a month or so ago. Right at the last minute, I was outbid and lost the auction. Then I get a notice saying the bidder had retracted their bid. Basically the owner had ran my bid til they hit my max and then took it back. I'm ok with it because I had set the max at the amount I was willing to pay. It ended up costing me $40, not a big deal.
Happens all the time in various ways.
If this happened to me, I would agree to buy the item at my highest bid before the shill's first bid. I would not agree to buy it at my max bid because this was only exposed due to the actions of the shill.
The action of the shill corrupted the auction from the moment he first bid, onward, but not prior to that bid.