Had 2 occasions in the last couple of days where I am highly suspicious of there being a fake bidder in order to drive up the price to the max of what I was willing to pay.
The first was a set of thunderbirds toys for my sons birthday. I had entered the maximum price (which was higher than I thought they were worth anyway but seemed good quality and are hard to find) Winning the bidding at about $66.50 with one day left I was hopeful. Then on the last day a new bidder entered with no bidding history at all who placed 5 bids increasing the price by $2 - $5 until they beat me. I lost the auction but almost immediately was offered a second chance offer to purchase the product for my max price entered. Not being a suspicious person at first I thought this was great and immediately payed via paypal. Having looked at the bidding history however I'm starting to think I've been duped. I emailed the seller asking if it was the same one as the picture or did he have multiple sets to which he said it was the same one in the pic. I opened a live chat with Ebay asking about this issue and if it was legitimate but they simply don't care. They said there is not enough evidence to investigate it. Pah, seems pretty dodgy to me. As long as they get their fees they don't care.
Unable to do anything about it now since I paid I'm more than a tad annoyed but have to live with it. We'll wait and see if it actually arrives and is as described. However I do feel that the second chance offer system is flawed. To protect buyers from this sort of thing wouldn't it be fairer to offer the price I was winning it for before the dodgy bidder entered the auction. Eg since I was winning for $66.50 shouldn't the second chance offer be for that since the winning bidder had no intention of purchasing it?!
My second bad experience was with a garden solar ornament I was buying for my mother in law. The auction started at $18 with a buy out of $25. I figured that I'd put a max bid of $25 and if I got it for less than it's a bonus. The next morning i see there has been 2 bids on the item that has pushed the price to $24.50. Now I discover that this is a private listing, meaning I cannot see the other bidders Id so cannot tell if it the same person or not. Looking now at the sellers previous listings they only do private listings so I cannot see if they have done what they call 'shill bidding' eg they have the same person associated to many of their listings to drive up the price. But really, if this was a legitimate bidder wouldn't they have just used the buy out for $25 rather than leave it with them losing at $23 or whatever price they entered? The seller I discovered has since listed the same item for a discounted buy it now price of $21.25 and they have 10 of these items. Meanwhile I am winning the bidding at $24.50 with 4 hours left on the auction that I will be stuck with having to purchase.
Again, it's my own fault for not doing my research properly and having an 8 month pregnant baby brain not thinking things through. Chalk it up to experience I suppose but I'm not happy and Ebay do not care one bit about my suspicions. As long as they get paid what's it to them?!

Ebay Australia has not updated their database with the latest Australia Post charges which rose on the 4th April 2011. On the 24th April I sold an item for just $15 but when Ebay calculated the postage it automatically used the pre 4th April postal charges. I was underpaid $0.65 postage by the buyer, no big deal if it was a $100 item, but when I emailed Ebay (probably a centre in India) I was given the usual fob off with a stock standard answer. This was despite me telling them I weighed the package accurately and agreed with the post office's weight, and input the correct dimensions of the package in Ebay. I understand volumetric weight and how to calculate it. It is used for postage on bulky items and because the box was large in volume but weighed only 1.5 Kg it was deemed as 4.5 kg by volume which rounded up to 5 Kg by the Australia Post rules. When I used 5 kg and the destination charges from the pre 4th April rates I derived the same postage that Ebay calculated for it on the 24th April. When I used the current post 4th April Australia Post charges, which I downloaded from the internet, I came up with $0.65 more. I am fed up with outsourced "service" departments where English is a second language. Any normal English speaking person could have followed my complaint and acted properly upon it. Instead we get service people with little command of English who look for buzz words then cut and paste stock standard answers thinking the recipient is a moron and cannot read their company's FAQ's and help section.
Considering it is a company worth billions you would think they could at least keep abreast of current Postal charges and promptly update their database/programs accordingly. I suggest all readers of this complaint check their Ebay sales since 4th Apr 2011 and if postage was incorrectly calculated bombard them with complaints.
Make them work for their money for a change!