Yeah. As recently posted on here, my sister who recently sold her flat at auction was encouraged by her agent, who was actually quite a nice person, to arrange with a friend or two to register and bid at her auction to quote "keep the bids on the boil".
The advice came with instructions not to leave any phone records of having spoken with these friends a few days before, and a few days after the auction.
Sure if these friends had half a mil of cash or cash and pre-approval, registered with a government agency, they could still gee up the price, but it would be very much more unlikely.
As I mentioned before, in the interest of not implicating my sister, she did not act upon the advice in the manner implied.
