I'm not trying to bash DC or anything like that. I clearly don't know much about this business or have any experience with it (I have no clue what the 2017 scandal was, for example).
What did happen is my wife and I watched and refreshed the screen as the clock went to zero with my bid being $5,306 (two other people I know where watching elsewhere as well). This was at 2:00 CST yesterday. The page flipped to saying the auction was closed and that FastCars was the winner. We had a moment of celebration at home, and I had time to post in two other locations the news that I had purchased that domain. I got up from my desk to go upstairs and looked at my phone, where I saw the price suddenly going up and the clock was still ticking away. I went back downstairs and refreshed only to see the auction was continuing. That happened. exactly as I stated it.
The rest you saw was me trying to fix it by outbidding some bot, which DC states they don't support unless otherwise approved (weird thing to say, IMO).
I was willing to pay well above market for this domain, one I would have put to use immediately. I thought that is exactly what a site like DC was for, and that I was their target audience for something like this. I eventually gave up, not because of the overall spend, but because I got convinced that this wasn't on the up and up. Just didn't feel right, and I've learned to go with my gut. It was also a long day of watching this thing, it was late, and I was a bit tired.
Tomorrow I will call DC and chat about the entire thing, try to see if anything can be done about it, but I don't have any expectations on the matter. It will just be an interesting footnote out here.
I very much appreciate all of your thoughts and comments on the matter. Good luck to all of you.