You're not crazy and its most likely netcode or desync issues. I feel it's getting worse. I have a very similar visual problem that has a similar result. Someone will be shooting at me and they are shooting so wide that I think that they're shooting at someone else. Then, I get deleted in one frame when one of their bullets actually hits me. Same visual bug when I am in a vehicle. A rocket will go wide and I think, yeah that aint gonna hit me. Then, I get hit by it and it isn't from the AT4 guided launcher.
There are some advanced cheats that will tell the user that someone is aiming at them and how accurate that aim percentage is. This tells them to take cover. A spin bot or auto trigger will behave very erratic when it zeros in on you.
Some times I'll see players snap to me in mid mag dump or shooting while they're reloading. This was an early bug when people were seeing tracers come out from people that were actually shooting at them but their character model hadn't updated with the new direction yet, on the server. So you had the optic of someone shooting out of their side and not looking at you.
It really could be anything at this point since the hit registry, desync, and netcode are so unpredictable at the momemnt.