Is a legal for auction-employees to place "fake bids" in a private auction?

Question

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.

Answer 1

If the bidder is not a bona fide bidder, whether he is employed by the auctioneer or not (the person may want the item), it is illegal. In your example, the result is that the auctioneer employee or the auctioneer owns the property at an inflated price or the item is withdrawn as it did not get a high-enough bid. What's wrong with that?

Answer 2

It depends on the policy of the auction site regarding employee bidding. Most likely there's nothing illegal about it, just unethical.

Answer 3

Yes an you should report it if you can prove it we are in the auction biz there are set rules an code of conduct if your sure very sure tip off the news paper this is fraud
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.A live Auction can be fun if legeal