Is it against tos or anything to use a bot to trade flip?

If it is how do you report someone for using one, ive seen at least 8 accounts now when trying to buy a item flipping using a trade bot. It's clearly a bot because they have a automated message whenever you try to buy something from them telling you the price is say 45ex higher than what they list it for to manipulate the market and im pretty sure they are auto messaging other listings because items that pop up on live search they are relisting minutes later.

Yes, use of any form of automation in connection with your use of PoE is a ToS violation.

That said, they clearly make a distinction between automation in trading and automation in gameplay, because as you say many traders you interact with are clearly using automation software and a few must have pretty wide distribution because many of the messages are the same.

That said, plenty of people using automation to trade are perfectly legit and will trade for the prices listed; rather than reporting people for automating trade your better off just setting these individuals to ignore on the trade site itself so you never have to interact with them again.

Can you provide an example Im having a hard time understanding what you mean.

Also realize that at any time there is potentially hundreds of players with live seaches up for items thay will ping them the moment one in the parameters is listed. Trying to buy spears right now for a decent price is like swimming with sharks.