If you wait to bid, this can happen. There will be internet lag, no matter how good your connection. I am on cruddy connect right now but at home I have super fast internet, my ping less than a second. And I never wait to bid. If you really want the player, bid as soon as you can to be included in the next round. The auction is part of the competition within the game, and how you approach it is up to you. I myself try to avoid bidding wars, at least when I want to conserve tokens, I try to look during server slow time, and bid only on players no one else has. I generally spend only a couple T for a player on the TL.