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I don't get it. Why would a scammer bid your auction up? What do they get out of it? Or is it some kind of bad blood kind of thing?

Well there's the flip side. Suppose the scammer was also legitimately bidding under another name - he could make the auction unattractive to others so that no other legitimate bids were made, thus protecting a low-ball bid. e.g. if the item is worth $60 the scammer bids $30 using his legitimate name and then bids $80 using his scam name. No one else bids, and he then cancels the fake bids at the last possible moment, hoping that no one else is watching the auction. Or he wins but never responds to the seller hoping that the seller then goes down the bidder list.

Of course in this instance that would mean that Patrick must be a scammer...