Your scenario, and variations on it, has been discussed many times in this Forum. The fact of the matter is that AS is in the business of submitting pre-programmed bids, pure and simple. It does not compare the bidding activities of its subscribers to see whether more than one of them are bidding on the same item, or comparing the max bid amounts and favoring one over another if that is the situation. AS has no interest in the outcome of any given auction beyond giving its subscriber(s) the opportunity to win that auction, since AS only profits from wins by its subscribers.