Pending but accepting back up offers

A coworker asked me to see pics of the house so I went online to see if I could find an old listing of the house.  (Usually on zillow, etc.  They'll have it as unlisted but will show a pic of the front of the house.)  Instead, I found a CURRENT listing of the house.  You can bet I dialed the number on the listing to "inquire about the property." 

Initially, the lady said it's an active listing, but when when she checked the MLS it was listed as pending and under contract (as it should be).  That's when I told her "yea, I'm the buyer with the contract.  Just wondering why you have my house listed for sale?"  "It takes a few days for that to be reflected once it goes into contract. It should update soon." she says.  "We've had an offer on this house since July 2010, and it's been off the market since the sellers accepted our offer 2 days after we submitted it...our offer had that contingency in it so no one should have it listed."  She then went on to say that the MLS says it just went under contract in January.  (Can you imagine the look on my face?  Can you imagine how this pissed me off?  It shuld've been listed that way since July.)  And then explained that sometimes they will change the status of the listing from "active" to "pending but accepting back up offers." 

Who knew there was such a thing?  I hope to god this house was never listed that way.  That could explain a lot about why they raised the asking price mid-game last month...6 months afer they "accepted" our offer of full asking price (at the time).  Sneaky bastards.  Criminals.