I heard about this happening recently, and I'm curious if this is legal. It seems fishy to me:
1) Person has an auction. They insist that a certain item sell at, say, $100.
2) A person at the auction bids $50.
3) Bidding dries up at $50.
4) An "undercover" auction-employee, pretending to be an auction attendee, throws out a bid for $60, to get the bids up closer to $100.
5) No other bids follow, so the sale ends at $60 and the auction-employee "wins" the sale.
6) After the sale, the undercover auction employee gives the item back to the seller.
Is this situation legal? Can an under-cover auction employee jump in to make a fake bid, just for the sake of elevating an item's price? It seems fishy to me, but I'm curious. Posting this under legal, since I'm not sure where this should go. Thanks.
2006-06-20
01:37:42
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3 answers
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asked by
Rob
5
in
Law & Ethics