My take on shill bidding is that it is annoying but there is nothing morally wrong with it... it has been around ever since people came up with the idea of an auction. When you go buy a house, you get shill bidding big time... at the end of the day, the seller wants to sell at a certain price, so he/she uses such tactics to achieve the goal. If a person is going to buy the item with a certain maximum bid, he/she has basically signed a contract to pay for the item with that price, if he/she proceeds logically, there wouldn't be a problem. Shill bidding is mainly affecting two types of people:
1) Bargain hunters - as they are misled to think they found a bargain, only to be outbidded at the end by the seller. So it turns out to be a waste of time.
2) People with a spending problem - just because someone outbidded your original maximum does not mean you have to up the ante. You have a budget to begin with and should stick to it.
