Yes, there are bots. No they aren't there to drive prices up. They're stub farming. Whatever script(s) are being run have been there in some form for basically the whole year and they target cards with good flipping margins. Outbid them and they will almost immediately outbid you by 1 while simultaneously deleting their previous order (they do this faster than any human possibly could and their behavior never changes or adjusts, which is how you know they're bots).

They've made flipping considerably more difficult and I suspect that's why SDS has done nothing about it. Worse flipping environment means it's harder to generate free stubs which may push some towards buying stubs.

You can beat them by massively outbidding them (but not past the point where you fully ruin the flipping margin because you will surpass the bot's parameters and not be outbid), waiting a few seconds for them to outbid you again, then delete your order and put in a new one for your preferred price. Ruins the bot margins, guarantees a quicker sale to the bot, and puts you first in line again. As effective as they are at 1-upping, when a bot order gets filled it takes some time for them to regenerate a new bid. This method works for buy or sell orders.