Vendors, Business, and Profiteering
No legally (Or illegally) registered vendors or business may use the IANAG Trade Forum, and no individuals may represent such entities in the IANAG Trade Forum. Included in this definition are those who engage in occasional "bulk buys" or "opportunity buys" at wholesale prices and then attempt to resell these items for profit.
Individuals may not engage in repeated or bulk sales of items for the express intent of earning profit. "Bulk sale" definition includes, but is not limited to, over two identical items not acquired in normal activities. For instance, 5 identical hard drives. A tray of CPUs. More than one complete, identical system. Not included in this definition are "closet cleaning" sales, "moving sales," or other large accumulations of primarily used equipment. Determinations of "profit" will be made at the IANAG Staff's discretion based upon available information. Threads posted in violation of these rules will be immediately removed without warning.
Sale Rules And Prohibited Items
Any items offered for transaction must be transferred under conditions legal for the particular item. Software will be sold/traded in accordance with all applicable EULA restrictions. We specifically prohibit the sale or trade of Operating Systems/software designated "Not For Resale" or "OEM," as virtually all EULAs prohibit transfer of such software except in very rare cases. It is the responsibility of the seller to determine compliance with any applicable federal/state/local law and to be able to furnish proof upon demand of the Staff that the offered item may be legally transferred under the conditions offered.
Sales of certain items, such as firearms/ammunition and Academic Edition software, which are deemed by the IANAG Staff to be difficult to monitor and potential sources of liability to IANAG, will be disallowed.
Seller
You may not advertise the auction or the classified listings of your items from other sellers' sites, including eBay. This prohibition does not include identical sales threads posted at boards similar to the IANAG Trade Forum such as Ars Technica, Anandtech, TechIMO or PCA. You MAY post links to personal, non-auction listings for convenience. It is encouraged that sellers link large quantities of pictures offsite rather than post them inline in an IANAG thread, and to state that their items are being offered elsewhere.
Items offered for sale or sale/trade must have posted prices. Items offered for trade only do not require prices.
"Interest check" and "price check" threads will not be tolerated for common items for which prices may be easily obtained.
"Or Best Offer" options ("obo") may not be used to sell an item at a price higher than originally asked for. E.g., $50 "obo" means that you may accept less than $50, but you will sell the item to the first person to offer $50. Lower offers may be refused at the discretion of the seller.
Sellers should make every effort to avoid excessive thread posting. There is no need to separate Want To Buy and Sale threads, nor to post two or three threads per week as additional things appear that you wish to sell. Plan your sales, and show your fellow traders respect by not crowding their threads off the front page. Staff reserves the right to require consolidation of threads or other action when appropriate.
There will be no more than three "bumps" or posts to a thread by the seller during the life of the thread which have the sole intention of moving a listing to the top of the display; the thread will be locked and no further posting in the thread will be allowed if such behavior is observed. Bumps from members are not limited. Exceptions in certain long-running threads may be made at the IANAG Staff's discretion.
In the absence of other agreements between seller and buyer, sellers are expected to provide reasonable tracking and insurance coverage of shipments appropriate for the value of the sale. It is the responsibility of the seller to undertake all investigations of lost shipments and the replacement of value lost by the buyer in such cases. Insuring any shipment of a value over $20 is strongly recommended.
Interested Buyers
Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware) You and only you are responsible for determining just how good a deal is. We strongly urge a thorough check of the seller's references if unknown to you. There is a forum-independent database at Heatware. Proper use of these resources will prevent almost all problems attributable to bad traders. Use them.
It is the seller's prerogative to define his desired method for publicly or privately reserving items offered for sale, a practice commonly referred to as "calling dibs." If the seller does not make such definition in the sale thread, the following default rule will apply: Calling "dibs" on an item may be accomplished through email or posting in the sale thread, although it is preferable to post "dibs" in the thread either way. If you're reading it, you can post to it. A "dibs" call is valid for 24 hours from the date/time posted or emailed. You may request an extension of dibs for over 24 hours, but it is the seller's right to accept or deny this request. The IANAG Staff reserves the right to refuse or curtail support for conflicts arising from situations where the seller defines a rule less specific than what is defined here.
Observers
Observers may not comment on Seller's prices within the thread. Any price comments must be kept to e-mail or avoided. We prefer avoided.
The quality of any trader as a personality outside of the IANAG Trade Forum will not be questioned in public. Any such opinions should be forwarded to the IANAG Staff in email or PM (Personal Message), and if required, a decision will be made as to the continued presence of the person in question within the IANAG Trader Forum.
Trade Conflicts And Trolls
Conflicts arising from transactions which do not meet the expectations of either party should be worked out between the interested parties, if at all possible. Only after these efforts are exhausted should the IANAG Staff be contacted and our only response will be to remove the thread and to suspend the posting privileges for both the seller and the buyer in the IANAG Trade Forum. We have no legal authority to force anyone to comply with any other person's demands and therefore cannot make any express guarantee that every transaction will be resolved to the satisfaction of both parties. IANAG Forums does not assume ANY legal responsibility for trading activity in the IANAG Trade Forum.
Conflicts between traders ARE NOT to appear as threads or posts anywhere in the IANAG Forums. Disputes will be kept private. Any public posting of a trade conflict will be deleted on sight and his/her posting privileges on the IANAG Forums as a whole will be suspended for one month.
The efforts of IANAG members to inform the population at large of known bad traders or new trolls are appreciated by the IANAG Staff. However, it is required that the IANAG Staff be informed prior to any member posting such information in the IANAG Trade Forum (Good Traders/Bad Traders). Confirmed sightings (declared by the staff of another board or poster's possession of actual evidence) may be posted immediately, with simultaneous email or PM (Private Message) notification to the IANAG Staff. Threads of that nature will be locked and should be posted in the Good Traders/Bad Traders Area.
Anyone banned from the IANAG Trade Forum over financial issues has one month to work out his/her issues, or be banned permanently from the forum as a whole. Appeals will be considered, but they are not modes of extension. Abuse of the appeals process will result in a permanent ban.
Other Issues
"Hot Deals" information may be provided, if and only if no other rule of these Guidelines is violated.
"Hot Deals" should be hot deals, not an observer's tool to alert others that a seller's price is too high.
The IANAG Staff will determine when any rules listed here have been broken.
Charlie Hayes
IANAG Administrator
