So on Sun night saw ride on lawn mower for sale near me £175, so asked if i could go and see it b4 making a bid.

Had been at 175 for about 3days as I had been watching it, strangely within 30 mins of my call price jumped to £500 with over a day still left on the auction, so watched it sell at £500 and just bought another of exat same model that had £425 buy it now, with 20 miles extra travel each direction, really hope it was him playing silly buggers and now gets stung for the fees

or it may just have been a coincidence…

big coincidence when there is another of same model with a cheaper buy it now price……

if you really thought seller a was buggerign about you could have made an offer of what you felt was resonable 'if your sale falls through'?

Not really if the £500 bidder had proxy bidded before the other item was listed. Why would he bump the price before your bid was placed?

i was happy to pay the 425, but its a bit suspicious when zero activity for 3 days, i phone to view and price jumps to 500 within 30 mins, when the same model mower is on another listing at 425 buy it now in a town only 40 miles away, surely any genuine buyer would just have bought that one

i didn't place any bid on the £500 one btw

Lister 1 lists lawnmower at say £100
Bidder 1 places max bid of £550 on item 1
Bidder 2 bids item 1 upto £175
Lister 2 lists lawnmower for £425 BIN
<Item 1 sits at £175 for three days>
Bidder 3 places max bid of £500 on item 1 hoping item 1 sells for less than £425 (if they've seen the second item at all)
Item 1 jumps to £500
Conspiracy theory starts

I can't see any reason why the lister of the first item would shill bid his auction before you had placed your bid. It makes no sense for him as it's only likely to put you off bidding.

[1]I can't see any reason why the lister of the first item would shill bid his auction before you had placed your bid[/1]

+1, yes if you had a bid in, but not before you bid.

See if Lister 1 comes back to you with a "second chance offer". That might be more convincing that there has been some shill bidding, I assume that is what you're referring to?

Rimmer may have bought the lawnmower off Lister for Kryten to use!

I'll get my coat