real estate agent's activities

I am a first year law student (as of this coming August) and I have been looking to buy a home in Gulfport, FL. I have been dealing with a real estate agent for several weeks now and find some of her (or the real estate company's) actions questionable, but not sure if they are illegal. I have put in 2 different offers on 2 different houses just in the past week. In both of the contracts that I have signed, the agent has specified that the seller is to notify me of a decision within 24 hours. However, my offers have been held by the agency PAST the time in which the contract says the seller is supposed to notify me of a decision (the sellers HAVE been available to present the offers to). Meanwhile, several other offers just "happen to pop up" and thus the bidding war begins.
I want to know if:
1) It is illegal or just unethical for the real estate agent to hold on to your offer in order to see if any higher offers come in (thus rasing their commission)?
2) While I know one can not be told the amount of the bids from other prospective buyers, is there a way to prove that there are actually 4 offers on the table if the relator says there are? (My concern here is that if a real estate agent that knows someone is really interested in a property, she can tell you there are 3 other offers besides yours in order to make you bid higher, thus again increasing their commission).

Thanks,
Hope

[HomeGuru]

1. both.
2. no way to find out unless via discovery.

This is something they do not teach you in law school. Fire that dumb ass agent and hire a new one.

I went throught the same scenario once myself. What I did was visit the seller myself just to ask genarally what was going on with the home. Such as , had any offers etc.....
The seller was unknowing as to who I was. I also sent a friend over later to check it out too. I was able to find out alot of information that the agent never let me know and in fact found out alot of lies. It worked at filing a greiviance with the local real estate board and the agent was disciplined for unethical behavior within the organization.