Help Me Understand Today's Online Auction

silverwolf, thanks a lot for this reply.

As I mentioned, I could really sense the difference between this auction and the type of thing I was seeing at the Expo at the reference library a few weeks back, the upcoming CNC auction, etc. This had a decidedly low-rent feel to it. And I forgot to ask you all about the fact that I couldn't check what an item had sold for - I definitely noticed this. I wanted to know if it's standard practice. Another weird thing was that I called them twice and they never picked up the phone (they eventually responded to email). Again, I don't know enough to know if this is the norm among auction houses but I'm guessing it's not.

Another thing that happened was that a lot would come up and there would be no bids... and then there would appear a single bid at a round number, and that would be it. Then the item would disappear. I felt like this was the auction house putting up what I would call a 'ghost bid'. I'm assuming that this is unethical but again I don't know.

This was a helpful reply and I guarantee I'm going to be cautious going forward.