I'll weigh in on this.
(first, a small story that probably belongs in the "shameful moments" thread)
I've been on the short end of the stick on a "wrong price." I accidently hit "accept trade" when they had offered the price I wanted on something, except they left off a zero at the end.
Was I annoyed, yes.
Did I hope they would return it, yes.
Did I actually expect that it would returned? Nope.
The more annoying thing was that I had lost the user name of the person who bought it. I had closed the tab where I had accepted the offer, so I had no idea who it was. Of course, I found out when I clicked on it that they were just sending me a message saying how dumb I was for accepting their bid without looking carefully at it.
I only tell this story as further proof that everyone makes stupid mistakes. And then they learn from it. I haven't accepted a crap big from the trading post since then.
My advice: Keep it. I agree with Cranberry's initial instinct ... it sounded fishy from the start. Almost like it was some lame scammers attempt at screwing with you. They probably didn't realize that an auction had a maximum increment thing ... and were setting up the auction to try and drive the price above the actual going price. Why else would someone else have bid on it beforehand? It just doesn't sound right.
I don't know if this would work (I don't spend much time in auctions), but if it was a Neofriend only auction, couldn't he have just deleted all his neofriends except one close one? That way, that person would have won the auction and he could just give it back to him.
I believe in fairness. Down with the pseudo-inflators. Down with the stupid WC map piece hoarders. I don't think you are obligated to do anything out of the ordinary, though.
If you really feel super guilty, then here is an option. Just resell it. Take the price you sell it for, and subtract what you paid the other person for it. Then, give the other person some percentage of it (50% could be a reasonable amount). That way you get something out of it, and they get something back as well. If you do this, make sure you subtract out the money you paid him already, though.
Sorry, I've rambled. I hope you come to a peace in whatever you decide to do.
Oh ... P.S. Cranberry is a nice person.
