A number of times now, (well, two or three), I have had people place a first bid on one of my auctions and then follow it up immediately with a second bid, the bid amount however stays the same.
Now this could be just a mistake and they thought the first bid didn't go through. But I'm begininng to suspect that this is a ruse to make other bidders think that this person wants the item so badly that they have immediately upped their bid to such a level that it isn't worth bidding against them.
Has anyone else come across this, is it a common tactic or am I looking too deeply?

I've seen this happen - is it because they bid then place another, higher bid which eBay logs but doesn't increase under their proxy bidding system?

Don't think it's a ruse and my theory might be rubbish!

R2

I have found that when two bids for the same amount are timed seconds apart, it is often an eBay hiccup. Sometimes my AS bids appear this way.

I have had it happen many times. No big secret. The person places a bid, and then having second thoughts, decides to place a proxy bid on the item, just incase their bid isn't high enough to win.

When the auction ends you can sometimes see that a bidder (usually a rookie) has upped their bid several times by small amounts, rather than putting in a proxy for their maximum bid. This is a common tactic with inexperienced and indecisive bidders.

Then someone like me comes along and snipes the item in the closing seconds! Just done this 4 times tonight. You should see some of the rude emails I have had. Teehee.