EBay claims to have systems to detect shill bidding, as this practice is known. It is no longer even reportable to eBay.
Many of are skeptical about this, as we are still getting questions about continued shill bidding. EBay has always seemed less vigilant about shill bidding than it is, for example, about fee evasion. The fact that eBay itself benefits from the higher prices - and higher fees - resulting from successful bidding couldn't possibly have anything to do with this.
The only way to protect yourself against shill bidding is to bid during the closing seconds of the auction, when shill bidding could result in the seller winning their own auction.
In your particular case what you could do - and would be within eBay's rules on bid retraction - is to retract your current bid, and bid again in the last few seconds.
