Auctioneer bidding on the auctioned item is perfectly fine around the world in various auctions. It's a form of concealed reserve price.
I have never, never heard about auctions who allow a person auctioning an item to bid on it in order to set a "concealed reserve price". Again, do you have examples of auction houses that allow that? Do they allow the person to withdraw their bid if someone doesn't bid above it?
You want examples? For example, come to Finland and join the local auction houses. Come see it. AFAIK, they do not allow bids to be withdrawn. How is that related anyway?
Reserve prices are usually concealed, and that's understandable. What's inconceivable to me is that anyone would do it like you did when there are no rules set about such things by bitcointalk, and you did not include such a rule in your auction. Bidding on your own items is NOT standard in the auction industry.
It not being a standard, in your understanding, makes it scamming / dishonest? Vod said he thinks nothing dishonest was done. Theymos said the same. Think about it and end up in the same result. Rules are same for everyone. Obviously stating if there is a reserve, or if there's not reserve, is a better approach. I've done that since this. A mere inconvenience / unclarity about how the auction works is not dishonesty or scamming. The default, at least in the US law, is that auctions come with a reserve price. You can see the quoted part in earlier posts. I understand that this forum follows no laws, but still how come you think that no reserve is the default in auctions in general? It's simply your view / expectation about how it should be, and going against it has nothing to do with scamming or dishonesty.
And you know what? People made all the valid arguments I could possibly make about this already in
this thread. You messed up and were dishonest, you got tagged for it, and now you think it's somehow the fault of DT members who wield their power as a weapon. Ain't so.
That is bullshit. I am not tagged for this auction. Read up.
It's absolutely a fault of a DT member to lie in his rating. Just this time Vod got caught. Yet you ignore it. Let me be as clear as possibly about this:
Vod's current red rating to me states the following: "Also admitted to me in PM he lied about this matter."
There is no PM existing where that happens. It's a lie made to back his earlier lie where I, claimed by him, scam people. Here's a proof of wrongdoing by a DT member. What is your action regarding it? I know: silence.
And what about those fake quotes, backpedaling and lies about who made them? Then getting caught again for bullshit. And again: silence.