This is precisely the reason that I refuse to purchase anything on ebay via auction, and have only bought BIN items for at least 3 years now.

I put items that I'm interested in on my watch list and do a check on them on the last day,(if I see shill bidding it gets reported and a note added).

Then if I want to go ahead and try to "get" the item, I either place my maximum bid with Gixen or I try and snipe the item myself,:-D

If I win fine,if not,well bad luck as there is always next time for anything that I'm likely to buy,;-)