Hey all... I have not read this whole thread but after reading the first few posts the behavior described seems pretty typical.
I record live concerts and as a side business I restore vintage microphones and then sell them on ebay. I do a moderate amount of buying and a significant amount of selling.
There are quite a few services out there that offer 'bid sniping' some you install on your computer, some you sign up with through the web. You enter the max amount you will pay for an item and then the service synchronizes it's clocks with ebay. Then it waits until the very last moment and places bids for you. The point of the process is that you enter the lowest possible bid at the last sec so no one can out bid you. However, some have parameters built in where if more people are sniping they try to sneak bids in and hope to be the final buyer. Depending on the snipers you might get the lowest bid possible or the snipers may compete against themselves driving the price up buy biding against each other in the last few seconds.
I always find that it is best not to bid until the last moment or you will drive the price up.
On the other side there are a few will known tactics where someone will start an item with a very low price and have a friend bid on it if the lowest bidder is actually below where they really want to sell. So their friend outbids until the price goes over what the seller really wants to get. If the friend buys it no transaction really takes place and the seller typically will relist the item and do the same thing.
Stay Kind,
Dana
PS. If you are encountering this alot one of the best ways to win an auction for something you want is to search auctions for typos in the name of what you are looking for. They won't come up in most peoples searches and you are often the only bidder.
I mostly deal with microphones so I will use that as an example. Instead of searching for AKG 480 try AGK 480 or try Shoeps instead of Schoeps. I don't use them but I have seen several programs out there that will automate searching for misspellings.