Ours wasn't bank-owned, but it was a short sale. It was listed for $800k. There were 12 other offers. The bank only wanted to see the highest and best offer. Our agent was representing us and the seller. All parties (i.e. sellers and us) were known to her personally, so we knew the offers were legitimate. We also knew we were going to outbid any offers that came in, and we did. It is walking distance to DH's work, so worth the premium to us. Then the original loan was sold to Ocwen, and the cluster fuck began in earnest. The escrow dragged on for eight months. The market continued to rise in the interim, taking some of the sting out of what we had to bid to get it.
One Friday, late in the endless escrow, Ocwen demanded $35k more. On Monday we told them to fuck off and we hired our own appraiser to show that our bid, at $128k over asking, was fair. Several weeks later, it finally closed for our bid price. What a total pain in the ass. Fucking Ocwen.
A couple years later, we experienced some trickery on a rental we attempted to buy. Our offer was supposedly not high enough, but when the house closed, it was for less than our offer. We ended up buying something else. Immediately after closing, the broker dropped us like a hot potato. We suspect some sort of collusion, but how would one prove it?