So I've had some issues trading on Mercatox. I'm still trying to buy DNotes and get a good price for them, so I've been watching the BTC/NOTE market pretty closely. I've noticed a few things that bother me.

1. Often, there will be trades executed for which there were no prior orders on the books. One time recently I had a buy order of DNotes at 598 Satoshi. It was the only buy order at that price and had been sitting on the books for several hours. Well, there was a buy or sell for approximately that same amount and guess what, not one single bit of my order filled! I was wondering where that other standing order had come from. This is at least the second time something similar happened. Mostly, it's other prices that simply aren't listed on the books.

2. I asked in the exchange trollbox if Mercatox has hidden orders and explained briefly what I'd observed. A bunch of people weighed in saying they'd noticed the same thing and it bothered them too. Some theorized that it had to do with links to markets on other exchanges, but no one really knew. One person mentioned he'd even filed a complaint with the exchange.

Is there a realistic explanation for what I'm observing? I'm finding it really frustrating because I feel as if I'm not being given complete information about the BTC/NOTE market on Mercatox, which means I'm basically trading blindly.

I read an article recently which accused some exchanges of inflating their trading volumes and I've wondered if randomly throwing in fake trades might be one way to do that. However, I'm really hoping there is a much better explanation for this. I would like to know what's going on so that I can trade with more complete information.