Posted By:
MarkI am suspicious as well. As a test, I recently placed a couple of bids on some wirephotos that had not seen any action for a while. Keep in mind, this is after 11:00 Pacific time / 2:00 AM EDT...
So I became high bidder on both pieces (with quite a bit of cushion between the current bid and my ceiling bid amount). Then, within a few minutes, I received Outbid notices for both. Somebody out there actually topped my bids instantly (at this time of night, no less). These were not snipes either... the items don't close until tomorrow night.
It's almost as if my bids triggered some automated response to raise the bid. This struck me as very odd. These items weren't getting much action, and normally any outbids would occur much further out (if at all...)