bcauction.ca

[CA] Fishy Government Auction site? (BC Auction https://www.bcauction.ca/open.dll/welcome) I've been keeping an eye on a government ran bidding site where they sell various surplus, seized, and retired stuff. I've been keeping my eye open for used vehicles from there as they tend to sell 20-30% cheaper than market value. Finally came across something I'd like to bid on, so I registered and placed a bid. First thing I noticed, there is no bid history. The recent bid was 5000, so I put in 5100. It was denied, as it says I was outbid. Refreshing the page, the bid has been put up to 5100 by the last person who bid 5000. I thought this was maybe someone fluffing up the bidding counter to discourage others from placing a bet on a seemingly high traffic auction. So, I bid again at 5200. It got denied again, outbid. Then again at 5400, and again at 5500. Every time, it was the same person. Here is when my alarms started going off, so I began refreshing the page over and over and the bid was stuck at 5500. About five minutes later, I bid for 5600, and it was denied. Again, I was outbid by the previous person immediately as I submit my bid. Same bid as mine, every single time. Finally, at 5600 my bid was accepted. 15 minutes later I was given a notification I was outbid from a different bidder. So, I tried upping to 5800. Immediately denied again, outbid by the new bidder. Out of curiosity, I raised to 7000 and it was once again denied, the new bidder, who previously bid 5800, suddenly decided to bid exactly 7000 at the same time as me, despite every previous bid being raised by 100. To anyone this comes across as a clear scam by the website trying to get more money out of their auctions, right? The thing that bothers me is that this is a government ran auction site that's been around for ages. This would have to be an internal thing. If someone was using a bot to always be the top bidder, my bids would still go through. I have not used any auction/bidding sites