First remember that you still are not paying more than you were willing to pay.
There are any number of reasons that a bidder may retract.
He may have bought elsewhere. Either on eBay or from another seller. Not a good plan to have bids on several identical items, but it does happen.
He may have been 'drunk bidding'. Or his meds may have kicked in.
Or his mother may have laid down the law.
Or he may have decided that he needed a different model.
Or he may have run out of mad money.
All of these are in the Most Likely category..
The most 'dangerous' reason would be that he was 'shill bidding.' This means the seller or a friend of the seller bids on an item until the underbidder's maximum bid is exposed. Then he retracts and does not rebid.
You win, and again, at a price you were willing to pay, but this is both sketchey and forbidden.
It takes a little research, but you can sort of figure out if the retracted bid was from a shill.
Go to the sellers feedback, click on the View Item for items that have sold.
Look at the bidding history.
If someone with the same number of feedback as the retractor was bidding and retracting but never winning, you can retract your own bid (because the seller is being dishonest, in your opinion) .
You can also Report the auction for shill bidding. All you will see from this is a polite email from eBay, but it will be looked into and the seller and shiller can lose privileges for doing this.
