Auction Power Guide

A few days a go I was bidding for an item and eventually lost it to another bidder who won it for around £180; which was a very good price. I went back the next day to see if a similar item had been put up and I found the EXACT same one for sale and that the same person who won the last one was bidding on this lot.

What do you think is going on behind the scenes here? Is the seller getting a friend to bid to up the price? Or do you think the seller asked the winner to decline their offer so that they could see if a better offer could be made this time around? Or is there something fundamental I’m missing like not meeting a minimum bid requirement?
Thanks Margie! There was no "reserve not met" tag on the old listing and there isn’t one on the new one either… I’m pretty sure it’s the exact same one as the last listing; same detailed pictures and same description but maybe I’m wrong.

Still taking advice/answers! Thanks in advance…

Go back and look at the completed listing for the first one you were bidding on and see if it says anything about "reserve not met". If there was no reserve on it, and it showed up again, either the seller has more than one of these items and is just listing one at a time, or there is bid shilling going on, which is against ebay rules. Shoot the seller a question, ask them how many of these do they have available, and see what the answer is. If you suspect bid shilling, report the seller to ebay. By the way, if this is what they are doing, they are idiots in more ways than one, because every time they cancel a transaction ( hoping to make more money) they must pay several fees. On an item this expensive, they are losing approx. 20 pounds each time they cancel !!!
Hope you get to the bottom of this.