This is worth each of us looking into but did you check the level of the manager that outbid you? Remember that the stars of the players we see is related to the managers level. If you are say level 15 and you look at a level 5 manager’s team you will see them all as 1 star even if they are all 6 stars to him/her. Similarly if a level 15 manager looks at a level 25 manager’s team that team will look like each player is 9 stars.
This does not mean that the manager is not a bot it is just to say that the stars you see for his team are more about your relative levels than whether it is a real player or not.