You can put your maximum bid in and it might be $100 and the item might sell for $80 without shill bidders. If shill bidders are in the auction and bid you up to $95, then they have now cost you another $15. There is a loss here Mark and shill bidders do cost you more. Even though you are putting in your maximum bid, it isn't fair that shill bidders drive up the price.

Like everyone else on the thread, I am against shill bids.

But if you look at a shill bid as a kind of "reserve," you won't be so upset. To a large extent it is like a reserve in an auction. In the example above, you would still have to pay the $100 if there were no shills but the reserve was $100. My take is that the seller always wanted to get $100 one way or another. He would never let it go for $80. It is kind of self-centered to want him to do something he never would do: let it go for $80. (And if it is unrealistic for the seller to expect more than $80, the use of a shill is more costly in fees than a reserve.)

My approach is:
(1) don't worry about shills
(2) place my eSnipe bid the moment I see the auction.
(3) forget or ignore it from that point on, and wait for the end of the auction.

Robert