If you have some notion of outbidding yourself then you are right. But you are not outbidding yourself, you are participating in the round.

Its a round by round mechanic. It only counts back to the leader from the previous round if no one bids in the current round. If you understand that then the risk is clear.

Leader bidding can be successful in the initial round if you are taking the chance that the other is offline/afk - I call it the Offline Steal. But you need to bid in advance of the end of the initial round to discourage others from trying the same, imo.

Safest way as said before is bid in each round - set your max spend and get out when you reach it or learn who are the crazy bidders and avoid them.