I was going to auction off a kids's science toy, so I signed up for Bitbid.
Eventually, I ponied up the .25 BTC for a year's membership.
When I looked in Block Explorer for my transaction, it didn't appear despite Bitcoin-qt saying there had been 62 confirmations.
I emailed them and they said "sorry for the delay, you are now a member," but I still can't find where those .25 BTC went to, or for that matter,
where the coins in my account are, even though I still apparently have a balance.
These may be all newbie misunderstanding rather than true problems.

The next thing to consider is that Google lists a warning for that site, and when I used a malware checking site on it, it pointed out that there was some hidden "cheapest viagra"-type ads in the HTML source.

So, can anyone say as to whether these things are normal? I've been able to follow a bitcent sent around here and there before.

PS Any advice as to whether a slightly unusual auction would be better at a large auction site (since people spend more time at them), or a small one (where my auction will be not be lost in the crowd.