Auction trick is legit here?

I'm sorry but you should absolutely, definitely report that guy to the mods. This is about as BS as an excuse gets. What he likely did is categorically not allowed.

If you don't report him he will do it again and screw over someone else. You kind of have an obligation to report him, in my opinion.

This is not allowed and gets punished. The offender has had their tg locked

I had a similar case the other day. I’m not exactly sure what happened cause I made the bid and went to bed. But I won the auction and the seller received my TG. I then msg him asking if he could mule the amulet and said someone had outbid me and I had lost. I check the transactions and I had in fact won the auction but there was another auction from the same seller with the same item that had ended 2/3 hours after my auction had ended. Im not sure if this was a double auction post on his end, if it was a mistake/glitch. He ended up giving the amulet to the person who paid more of course and refunding me.

The dude was cool about it but if this is a bug it should be looked into.

what a scummy move, hope something's done in this case.

People using the auction should not be jumping the auctioned items between characters after the auction is placed period. Put the item on a character before the auction and leave it there.
Lazy people should not be using the auction either, "lost in a mule" is something somebody to lazy to search for it would say.
People who cannot simply read rules should not be using the auction either.

youll do community a favour by reporting this guy