AS did exactly what you paid it to do, it placed your snipe (at the max amount you specified) in the last few seconds and you won. As to the mechanism of the win that's down to ebay's Proxy Bidding system and no slight of hand bu anyone.
Although it bores me to have to spell it out, here goes:
At 18:45:38 Bidder 4 placed a bid of £200 which easily beat Bidder 3's bid of £177. However, at that point, the high bid would have appeared to be £182 (ie. one full increment over Bidder 3's bid) in favour of Bidder 4.
Then AS did its thing with your maximum bid of £200.01 (well done for adding the extra penny - if you'd bid just £200 you would have lost!) and ebay's proxy bidding swang into action giving you the 1 penny win.
No conspiracy, no fraud, no secret handshakes took place.
As to the identity of Bidder 4 - read what it says on the Bid History page:
quote:To help keep the eBay community safe, enhance bidder privacy, and protect our members from fraudulent emails, only you and the seller of the item can view your User ID in bid history. Other members will see anonymous names.
So, Mark, stop being paranoid (drugs can have that affect!) and enjoy the moment.
R2 (who told you I was paranoid?!)