There's no way to tell they aren't artificially raising the price on you / extending an auction you would have otherwise won.
Absolutely. In fact, I'd bet the farm that beezid is using bots to artifically increase the bid price.
Oh, and like the last poster mentioned, people do wait until the final moment to post, but with clock extensions, you can't snipe an item like you can on Ebay. The extender is a critical piece to ensure more money.
I wonder what would possess people to believe they could actually come out on top there.