Shuls where they sell aliyos there are schemes used to raise the cost of an aliyah. For example:

1) A non-member wishes to purchase an aliyah for someone else. He informs the gabbai of his intent to purchase the aliyah and the maximum he is willing to pay. Is the gabbai permitted to bid close to that amount to generate more money, even though the next closest bid is well below that?

2) May someone submit a bid to increase the cost of the aliyah without intent to win the auction?

3) The gabbai notices that a wealthy person is interested in purchasing an aliyah but since no one else is bidding for the aliyah he motions as though he received a bid to increase the cost of the aliyah.

Q: Is the use of such methods permitted? If not, does the        purchaser have to pay the inflated price?

A: In the first scenario, the purchaser does not have to pay more than the lowest amount he would have had to bid to win the aliyah. Since the gabbai was charged with representing the purchaser’s interest, his job is to secure for him the lowest, not the highest, cost and if he disregards his fiduciary responsibility, he is not acting as the buyer’s agent (C.M. 182:3).

In the second scenario, since the one submitting a competing bid will be obligated to pay if his bid wins, the winner must pay the amount that he pledged (even though the other bidder’s intent was to increase the cost of the aliyah).

The question arises in the third scenario described above.

Someone had a deal with the gabbai that he would bid on aliyos to increase the bidding, and if he actually won the bidding, he would pay half of his final bid. The Chida (Yosef Ometz 57) rules that such an arrangement violates the prohibition against deceiving a person in the context of a sale — geneivas daas (C.M. 228:6). He further violates the prohibition of performing iniquity and speaking falsehood.

Moreover, Chazal warn (Bava Basra 8b) against pressing a person to give tzedakah since he may not have the pledged funds, and this warning is certainly applicable regarding communal matters.

In addition to the prohibition of geneivas daas this practice may involve theft since the aliyah is not actually worth the inflated amount, because no one else was willing to pay even close to the winning bid. The fact that this person agreed to pay more is because someone else was submitting false bids he never intended to fulfill. For this reason, as we will explain, even b’d’ieved he may not be required to pay any more than the amount that would have won the bidding.

There are two views regarding the sale of an aliyah — depending on circumstances. In one scenario someone bids on an aliyah simply because he is interested in the honor of having the aliyah and it is not a vow to give tzedakah (see Panim Meiros 2:25, cited in Shaarei Teshuvah, O.C. 154). The aliyah is not worth the amount he pledged since the bidding was dishonest; consequently, he is not obligated to pay any more than its actual value. Even in other instances, where the bidder intends to also make a vow to give tzedakah (Tzemach Tzedek 72, cited in Magen Avraham 154), it is possible that the vow is not binding since it was made in error (see also Maharsha, Sukkah 29a; Minchas Yitzchak 3:97; and Tzedakah U’mishpat 7:[5]).