âAdvertisement promoting the Imperial Academy. An Imperial Academy was a military training program run by the Galactic Empire, and primarily focused on training both the enlisted and officer corps of the Imperial Military.
People have created accounts and bid on their own stuff to try to raise the price. If caught, they are deleted from the system by E-bay. As many people wait until the last few minutes to make a bid, it is probably the surest way to win something.
The act of placing a bid on a reserve auction is no different from the act of placing a bid on any other eBay auction-enter your maximum bid and let eBay's proxy bidding system do the rest as usual or snipe if you prefer and wait for the auction to end.