I saw a Beech Staggerwing (project) being auctioned that piqued my curiosity, so I put in a bid (no minimum raise listed). Within minutes the bid went $100.00 higher, so I bid $1.00 more, and in minutes it was raised. I thought the timing was a little odd, so I did a little investigating and found the owner of the plane was bidding it up himself. No idea why except maybe counting on someone losing his mind and over bidding. So I wrote a robot. At random intervals over the next week, the robot countered every bid until the one bid took it totally over the top, and then I quit, withdrawing my offer, leaving him with the high bid on his own plane. A month later it started over again. I turned the robot loose. Same result. The third time it appeared I sent him a note, through a couple of third world proxy servers, and told him I knew who he was and what he was doing. The auction went offline immediately.
This is why I need to fly as much as possible, to keep me away from the computer.
