Trading Rules - Improvement Suggestion

[Spy]

Hi all,

Having read the threads regarding "selling time" and "When do you have a deal?", I thought I would offer mu improvement suggestion. I sent this suggestion to J-C via PM back in May but never heard anything back.

One of the key issues is that there is no visibility with what is going on.

I am also a member of another, unrelated forum, called avforums.com. I have used many forums over the years but I have to say that the AVForums trading system/rules are by far and away the best I have come across. Everyone respects them and all trades are fair and transparent.

A lot of equipment is bought and sold on there ranges from $5 DVDs to $10,000 high end HiFi separates.

The rules are designed to encourage transparency, avoid bidding wars and guzumping.

All discussions are done on the thread, no PMs allowed until a deal has been agreed.

Basically, a seller posts an item for sale along with the asking price (ensuring they state if Postage is included or not). The first buyer to pay the asking price in the thread, gets the item.

If they offer less, the seller can choose to accept, reject or revise their price.

If they revise the price, the new price now applies. All this is done on the postings within the thread. No PMs are allowed until a sale has been agreed.

There is a bit more to it than this as the trading rules have developed to cover all manner of different scenarios. I have pasted them below.

I would be interested in your thoughts. Believe me, they work well. People are banned from the sales forum for a short period if they intentionally break the rules.

[Spy]

----------AVFORUMS TRADING RULES--------------
1, GENERAL
By posting in this forum you agree to abide by all of the rules of this forum and not to enter into any arguments with moderators, whose decision is final. Moderators of this forum are empowered to
a) impose a trading ban on members found to be breaking any rules of this forum.
b) remove any posts in any other forums questioning/arguing any decisions made by moderators here.
c) following fraudulent actions, terminate your AVForums account, publish your details in the bad trader's thread


IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE ABOVE, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE TRADING FORUMS.

Who may trade on the AVForums?

* Nobody under the age of 18 may use the forum classifieds.

What may you trade on the AVForums?

You may trade personally owned items which are legal to sell in the UK

The penalty for breaking any of the following rules will be at the discretion of the moderators and will vary from a warning or a temporary trading ban to permanent exclusion from the forums.

The AVForums and the moderators and staff, cannot accept any liability for any losses incurred from the use of the classifieds forums. If you are a victim of any activity you feel is illegal please report this to the trading moderators who will endeavour to help you.

2, ADVERTISING ITEMS
Users may create one thread each per trading forum and a system is in place which will prevent you from creating more. This is to maintain fairness and to prevent clogging up of the forums with multiple threads from one person. If you have a number of items for sale and/or wanted, please list them in one thread. Once your trade is complete to the satisfaction of both parties, or you wish to cancel your advert, please click Thread Tools -> Archive Thread to move the thread to the archive. You are then free to create another thread.
You must include a price in your for sale/for trade post even if you are offering the goods to trade (because people inevitably offer you a price for goods even if they are advertised for trade).
All ads must state if the price includes postage or not. If your post does not specify whether on not postage is included it will be assumed that your asking price includes delivery.
If you wish to sell several items as a 'bulk' sale with one price for the lot, you may not then sell the goods individually unless you list a price for each individual item.
Profiteering by selling items at above the retail price or the price you paid for them is not allowed. Asking a fair price is, of course, fine. But we feel it is our duty to protect forum members from advertisers deliberately overcharging for goods.
It is your responsibility to describe the goods accurately.
Be honest. If you misrepresent the condition or history of the goods, then the purchaser is within their rights to demand a partial refund or a return of the goods at your expense.
The admin of the AVForums will endeavour to resolve any trading disputes and their rulings are final and must be adhered to.
If the AVForums admin find you to be at fault in any way and you do not make good on the trade then you will be permanently banned from the forums and your details will be published in the bad traders' thread.
Advertising stolen goods, pirated DVDs/games will get the advertiser an instant and permanent forum ban.

3, GOODS AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE
With the exception of software, you are not permitted to advertise or offer your items for sale elsewhere*. We apply this rule because once negotiations have commenced, we do not want our members' time wasted by having goods removed from sale here because they have been sold elsewhere.
* By software we mean movies, music, video games and computer software. If you wish to make people elsewhere aware of the goods you have for sale here, please refer them to your advert and ask that they reply to your thread making an offer in the normal way. You may post your movies and music for trade on other sites (except Ebay and other auction sites), but on doing so YOU MUST keep your thread up to date to show what has been sold.

4, MAKING AN OFFER
You cannot make a higher offer after an offer has been accepted. This rule prevents gazumping and turning the sale into an auction, which is prohibited on this forum.
You should only make an offer for an item when you have the funds to pay for it, and should not post something like 'I am interested but need to sell this or that first to raise funds'. You should have the funds available before making an offer. (The seller may agree to wait if you have offered and it has been accepted, but this should be discussed in the thread with the seller, and it doesn't affect the seller's rights to refuse your offer).

5, PM AND EMAIL USAGE
PM and email may not be used at anytime in a live sale. All discussions including offers, acceptances and refusals should be shown clearly in the thread. Once a sale is complete you may use whatever form of external communication you like to finalise payment details etc. Your general geographical location and detailed specifications of equipment are not considered to be valid reasons for using off thread communications. It is the responsibility of both the vendor and the purchaser to ensure that all negotiations are conducted in the thread. We insist on this rule because we need to see all the negotiations to be able to mediate a solution to a dispute.

6, NEGOTIATING THE DEAL
Fair play. If a vendor and a potential purchaser are in dialogue over the price of the goods and the vendor reduces the price for that potential purchaser, that price becomes the new asking price for all potential purchasers. However, the potential purchaser in dialogue has a 30 minute period in which to agree to that offer before other parties may 'jump in' offering that new price to secure the sale.
Wanted Adverts. Wanted adverts do not work in the same way as For Sale adverts. A Wanted advert is the sole property of the original poster, and items offered on a wanted thread are for the original poster only. Other members may make an offer, such as if member x doesn't want this, I'll take it for the asking price, but the original poster always has first refusal on the item. The 30 minute rule does not apply on a Wanted advert.
The seller offering the item may of course have their own For Sale thread with the same item available. Should an item have offers on both a Wanted thread and For Sale thread, then forum timings will be used to decide priority.
The first unconditional offer of the asking price secures the sale. The vendor cannot accept an offer higher than the asking price.
Vendors may, of course, choose who they deal with. If a vendor has had a particularly negative or positive experience with a particular person, they may choose to deal or not to deal specifically with that person. If, however, this action breaks any of the other rules, a moderator must be contacted (by reporting the post ) to make a ruling on the deal.
If a vendor has two offers, one being an offer to trade and the other being an offer to sell, the vendor may choose which offer to accept.
Do not edit your text made in posts in order to secure a deal (by, for example, altering your offer price upward to beat a rival buyer). All post edits are logged so we can easily see when and how the posts have been changed, so any attempted deception will be found and dealt with severely.

7, WITHDRAWING FROM SALES
Once a sale has been agreed on the forums you may not withdraw from it without a very good reason. You will need to PM a moderator with an explanation. Even if you have a good reason, the moderators reserve the right to impose a short trading ban.

8, ENDING YOUR ADVERTS
If you decide you want to remove your advert (either after the deal is completed or with the goods unsold), you should click Thread Tools -> Archive Thread to move it to the archive. Adverts are automatically archived after 30 days of inactivity.

9, INFRINGEMENTS & SPOILING
If you see any rule infringements, we would be grateful if you would report these to the moderators by clicking the small triangle under the poster's name. Please do not post comments in the thread as this will be considered to be spoiling.
You may only post normal trading dialogue in classified threads.
If you are making an offer and want to illustrate a price on another website then you don't have to include a link to that site provided it's easy to find the evidence. E.g. 'Play.com have it for £9.99 so I'll offer £7.99'. If you assert that the goods can be found elsewhere at a certain price and this information is incorrect or difficult to corroborate then you are guilty of spoiling and the moderators will apply a trading ban. We advise that you provide a VALID link to the website showing the goods for sale.
Auction sites are not valid for price comparisons, and links to auctions must not be made by either buyers, or sellers.
You may reply within a trading thread ONLY if you are interested in participating in the trade. Anything else can be considered spoiling and will result in a trading ban. There is ONE exception to this: Even if you are not interested in taking part in the trade, in the interests of preventing someone from offering goods for sale at unreasonably high prices, we DO allow you to alert potential buyers to this by providing a valid link to a commercial web site selling that item (or the new model if the listed one is discontinued) new. For example, you see someone selling a used subwoofer for £200 when Richer Sounds are selling it for £210 new. You may post a link to the page on the Richer Sounds website where the subwoofer's price is displayed.

10, DISPUTES
If there is a dispute over an AVForums trade, please take the following steps:
1) If your thread is no longer visible, (completed and expired threads are moved to the archive), and/or closed, then send a private message to a trading moderator asking that your thread be moved to the Disputed/Problem Trades forum and reopened.
2) Reply to your thread detailing exactly what has happened since the trade was agreed which has caused the dispute.
3) Report your new post to the moderators (using the button) asking for help to resolve the dispute.
The moderators will do their best to help bring the dispute to an amicable conclusion. This service is not available to trades which have occurred by private message.

11, GIVING AWAY ITEMS
You may not offer to give things away for nothing and then have an auction were people each bid a little more in each post.
If you want to get rid of something then say that it is free to good home to first person paying a specified sum for postage. Once someone offers this set amount, the deal is finalised. You may not accept a higher amount than that you have specified and must not encourage an auction. We would encourage you to auction the goods for charity.

12, CHARITY AUCTIONS
The only exception to the previous rule is when goods are auctioned for charity. It is permissible to hold an auction for charity, but ONLY with the prior permission of Admin, who will explain on an individual basis the special rules that apply to these events. If you don't want to administer the auction yourself, please ask in the forums and someone may offer to help.

13, YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
All traders will be expected to visit the forum to deal with their trades roughly on a work-daily basis. That is to say you should be able to respond to questions/offers etc. within a day or two during the week. You will not be expected to visit weekends and if there is a delay in your responding, this will be taken into account. If you can only visit the forums infrequently - say on a weekly basis - then don't even think about trading here as people will expect you to respond to threads MUCH quicker than in 7 days! Anyone time wasting by visiting too infrequently or using that as an excuse will receive a trading ban.

Anyone who fails to honour their obligation in a trade will be contacted by email by admin to ask for an immediate resolution. If this is not forthcoming then we will treat it as a criminal matter and give all the information we have about you to the injured party and publish your details in the bad traders thread. We will also permanently ban you from the AVForums. This action is done to protect the community from deliberately fraudulent traders and by trading in the AVForums you agree to allow forum admin to pass your details on in the circumstances and method described above.
You are responsible for all trades and sales you take part in. Goods sold remain THE VENDOR'S responsibility until RECEIVED by the buyer.
We strongly recommend that you:

* Request digital photographs of the goods you are purchasing. We have seen a roller blind sold as a projection screen. And a damaged subwoofer described as in mint condition. A photo may have prevented both of these unsavoury incidents.
* Insist on insured delivery and make claims against that insurance where items are damaged or lost in transit.
* If you are signing for receipt of goods, unless you have checked and are happy with their condition, mark the delivery receipt 'unchecked'. Otherwise if the goods are later found to be faulty, the vendor and the delivery company are not liable in any way.
* Obtain and verify the details of the person you are trading with by, for example, calling them on their landline phone.
* If you are transferring monies via bank transfer or any other digital means, check that the name and location of the receiving account matches the detail you have about the vendor and get proof of the transaction.
* Refer to the good & bad traders' threads as a guide to the other person's trading history.

It is also your responsibility to read the rules and fully understand them before posting in the AVForums classifieds. Any rule breaking will be dealt with according to the rules above and no conversation or correspondence will be entered into by the Moderators or Admin.

[Bearcat]

MEGO.........(My Eyes Glaze Over....)


Who needs MORE rules?



--Doc

[macscac]

i am blinded by the wall of text...


sorry man! i dont read EULA's on games/programs i install....
im not reading that either!!!

[Anubis]

We have problems having our members properly tag their pictures..... and it's one of the sales form requirements.

Spy, your initiative is dearly appreciated.

[Quick Brick]

I appreciate what both you (OP) and Anubis are saying.

What happened to 'no tickie, no washie' ... simple enough. If you haven't paid for an item, don't assume it is yours until you have done so .

[owdeguy]

Bah, I don't want a ton of regulation on how I sell my own stuff. Some people like to set a bunch of rules, good for them. Others like to say they'll sell to whomever and whenever they feel with no regard to order, good for them too. Possession is 9/10s of the law, and so long as they don't abuse the guidelines set I say let those selling set thier own terms..

[chas1133]

yeah...what he said...

[louisruby]

I see the OPs point , nice idea, but a bit too regulated. As long as the seller puts in their thread that item is sold or on hold subject to payment, or updates their thread in some way than that's enough. Seller should decide who the buyer is

[ezod]

First pay, first served.

[limp]

If it aint broke, don't fix it![/FONT] An idea to make RG better is appeciated but I think the present rules are good.

Way to long to read, but one problem is see is if I want to give a particular member a break, say because they did me a favor or have bought from me in the past doesn't mean I have to sell it to someone else for that price. Not looking to take advantage of anyone but I should be able able to sell my things to whom I want for what I want.

Just my .02c....

[Spy]

No worries guys - I agree with you regarding the long rules. To be honest with you they have expanded over time.

The basic premise is that all discussions are done in the thread. If one person asks a question, everyone gets to see the response. First to offer the asking price gets it.

[Pugwash]

The basic premise is that all discussions are done in the thread. If one person asks a question, everyone gets to see the response. First to offer the asking price gets it.

It's my choice to whom I sell a watch. I'll take a well-known EU buyer over a zero-post noddy in Hong Kong every day of the week, regardless of who answers first.

[Neo]

I like the rules as they are. I've never been ripped on RGK but have been ripped 3 times on the bay(look at all their rules!).
We have a good community, when we find a bad apple we discard it.

[roflwaffle]

lame rules.
completely


and... i dont think ive *ever* had anyone try to 'gazump' anyting... and.. check my feedback.. I've sold... well.. quite a number of watches..

i just dont think its an issue here..

AND.. to compound that... deals here are often more than higher/lower

trades are involved... friends (for me) get special consideration that others may not get...

I'm not going to laugh in the face of a good friend if he wants to lowball me a bit...

but i might if its someone ive never heard of.

also we have VIP sales/normal sales.. sometimes with differening prices in between

and good freaking luck banning PM offers

in short... totally lame and unnessary

[roflwaffle]

Also, by your rules.. theres a lot of room for seller getting the shaft.

1) lowballs will be seen by others, so when they make their offer.. it just has to be higher than the last lowballer... it *does* essentially become an auction... totally lame.

2) if buyer A and B are interested. A is a newb, B is an upstanding guy.

A says he'll take it... B says he'll take it right after.. i have to sell to A..

A bails on me... i contact B... B says 'oh.. man.. i thought A was going to take it.. i already found something else'


when if we used our current rules.. B would get it every time.

[capice]

I wasn't talking about a ton of rules.... this is a LOT of rules Spy, tnx for the input m8

[Pugwash]

This sounds like a dems/reps discussion. One side says no rules, the other says more rules and boom! Credit Crunch! The answer is in the middle, guys.

We're ok as it is now. Nothing will stop the really determined con-artist, and nothing will make every transaction perfect, but we're at the nice blend of convenience and security.

[narikaa]

Just remember the Golden Rule....................




'The man with the gold, makes all the rules'



.

[roflwaffle]

This sounds like a dems/reps discussion. One side says no rules, the other says more rules and boom! Credit Crunch! The answer is in the middle, guys.

We're ok as it is now. Nothing will stop the really determined con-artist, and nothing will make every transaction perfect, but we're at the nice blend of convenience and security.

only.. here.. nobody was on the side of 'we need less rules'



i welcome more credit crunch..

i like it with a little bit of milk on top for breakfast.

[capice]

This sounds like a dems/reps discussion. One side says no rules, the other says more rules and boom! Credit Crunch! The answer is in the middle, guys.

We're ok as it is now. Nothing will stop the really determined con-artist, and nothing will make every transaction perfect, but we're at the nice blend of convenience and security.

Afraid you are right m8..............

[Spy]

I feel rather guilty posting up the rules. I am not one for loads of rules, I posted them so those that could be bothered could get a fuller idea of how it worked. The rules just covered loads of different situations.

For me, the real issue is transparency. Pretty simple really.

If all the questions and answers were posted in teh threads then at least everyone is buying with the same info and doesn't need to ask the same questions over and again.

Also, the first person to post in the thread that they will buy it, is then obliged to buy. If they retract on their offer, causing the seller to lose out, they get a one months sales forum ban unless they have a good reason that convinces the admins they pulled out legitimately.

Either way guys, luckily I have bought a couple of secondhand watches here with few issues but I do sympathise with both buyers and sellers when things go wrong.