Shilling is definately a real phenomenon though- I had an auction a year or so ago where 5 minutes before the end of an auction my bid was pushed up to the max, passed, then the high bidder "canceled" the last bid, making mine the winner. It looked a little fishy, as the other bidder had only 1 feedback, from that same seller. I went back in to the 2nd bidders history, and found they had retracted multiple winning bids, and I am sure they were for the same seller. Long story short, they get a second account set up and used it to run up bids. I refused to pay for the item, explaining to ebay by phone it was very clear they had a case of fraud. I never heard about it again.