Buy/Sell/Trade Forum Guidelines

[TimS]

This forum is for contributing members of this website.

To be initially considered a "contributing member" you must have BOTH the following:
- You must have at least 15 posts.
- You must be registered for at least 7 days.
- To remain a contributing member you must participate in the other forums here as well.

(Please, do not email me and ask why you cannot post in this forum when you are a brand new member or have like 3 posts -- it's right here, at the top, in bold text...the answer to your question...pinned to the top -- it even says "read this before you post"

****If you do not come here to engage in discussions, help others or even to ask questions or socialize, then please don't use this forum to buy or sell things.
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BST FORUM RULES
(details for each rule below this list)
- If you are using these BST Forums, you are responsible for knowing these rules - please read all of them --

1. Personal Messages (PMs) - we do not allow negotiating, making offers, buying, selling or soliciting (that includes soliciting trades) via PMs - period. Ever.

2. Items being offered for sale on this forum must not be offered for sale on any other website or in any other manner while they are offered here.

3. Do not criticize anyone's asking price - it's their 'for sale' thread - if you aren't interested in buying it, stay out of it.

4. This forum is for non-commercial use - this includes items that you purchased wholesale, through your business or selling things you made.

***This also covers "flipping" - the resale of newly purchases plugs for profit - we do not allow the selling or trading of new plugs purchased in the past 60 days. Profit or intention doesn't matter.

5. Items that are offered for sale here should be offered to the members in the order that they accepted your asking price - see explanation #5 below for more. 

6. Each member is limited to 4 active threads (combined) at any one time - you can now close your thread - please don't post in it when you close it, just close it.

7. Do not remove pictures or text or prices from your post after an item is sold - leave your threads intact.

8. Bumps and "ttt" posts are limited to once per day with a total of three bumps per thread.

9. This forum is not to be used for announcements of sales elsewhere nor should anyone refer others to places they can purchase something.

10. SELLING - Every items that is placed on this forum for SALE must be described as well as possible and listed with a clear asking price - "add paypal fees" is NOT considered a clear asking price. See explanation #10 below for more.

10A. TRADING/BUYING - When you start a WTT or WTB thread, the item(s) you are looking for must be described as clearly as possible. No "lets see what you got" threads.

11. Do not hijack - no one, under any circumstances, should show interest in or offer to buy ANYTHING in a WTB thread they didn't start - EVER.

12. No PayPal "Gift" or "Friends and Family" - don't ask for it, don't demand it, don't suggest it - PayPal "gift"/"friends and family" are not welcome here.

12a. No Venmo payment can be requested by sellers here either - turns out there is no recourse from Venmo once a payment is sent.

13. PLUGS - Want to SELL/Want to BUY/Want to TRADE - they have separate forums for a reason. Do not offer to TRADE in a WTB/WTS thread - do not offer to BUY in a WTT thread.

14. No telephone numbers, email addresses, text message request or "PM with interest" in any BST Forum here.

15. When selling/trading with a member who has less than 100 posts or has been a member for less than one year you are welcome to require them to pay for signature confirmation and/or insurance. See #15 below for more info.
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(the following statements are here to clarify or expand upon the rules above)

1. *Anyone that makes an offer or accepts an offer to buy, sell or trade with another member through PM's may lose their BST access as well as their PM access. PMs are for AFTER the deal has been made in the thread where it was posted. There is no excuse, there is never a time when it's ok to do it - it is a seller's responsibility to follow these rules as much as it is the buyer's.

2. If your item is being offered for sale anywhere else - online, locally, in the paper, at a yardsale, etc - then do not post it on this forum. If your item does not sell on this forum, you can certainly update your post with "Item no longer available" - and then sell it somewhere else. But we are implementing a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for items being offered in multiple places at one time. It's too complicated to be fair to the members of any one of those places - while they may not care, we do.

3. Anyone criticizing someone's pricing or saying you can get it for less elsewhere, commenting on where you can get it, or making any negative, sarcastic, or wise-ass comments about someone's items or pricing will be given an infraction the first time and removed from this forum the second time. If you aren't interested in buying the item or offering some respectful, positive/constructive feedback, then you shouldn't be posting in the thread - period. THIS is not a discussion forum. If a thread violates the rules, report it please.

4. The following list explains what we consider "reselling" and "commercial use":

*Other than plug flipping, we are now specifically exempting fishing tackle from the "reselling" section of Rule #4 - discussion thread about this here -

• If you purchased or acquired the item for free or at a reduced price through your business or a business you represent - that is commercial.
• If you built, assembled, finished, painted or manufactured the item with the intention to sell it - you cannot sell, barter or trade those items here.
• CUSTOM RODS - there is no time that anyone can offer a new, unused custom rod that they built for sale here - period.
• BUSINESSES - if you make something to sell...anything...including the parts used in the building of that item, are not to be sold, bartered or traded - as noted, we do not allow any commercial (business) use of the BST Forums.
• selling/trading new plugs purchased in the past 60 days is not allowed.

5. When more than one person accepts the original terms for an item, that item should be offered to the members in the order that they accepted your asking price. **"I'll take it" does not mean you automatically get the item - the seller can choose to continue their discussions/negotiations with ANYONE that posted BEFORE your I'll take it - but no one AFTER your "I'll take it". In other words, if the first response is a question and the second response is "I'll take it", then the seller can choose to answer the questions of #1 or just sell the item to #2. But if #1 says "I'll take it" in the thread and #2 asks a question or offers more money, then the seller is obligated to sell to #1. It's the seller's choice so long as the buyer is no further down the thread than the first person that accepts the terms of the sale with no reservations or stipulations. When people make reduced price offers, the seller has the right to either answer questions or move through the offers/questions to the first one that meets the original terms of the purchase - sellers are NOT required to respond to or otherwise entertain offers. If you do not get a response to your offer, please do not post in the thread to ask why. There is no such thing as a place holder or dibs - under any circumstances. This not an attempt to discourage folks from using PMs or email to discuss the details of a sale or ask questions about an item - please, feel free to do that as much as you'd like. 

6. An 'active' thread is any for sale, want to trade, or want to buy thread on page 1 or page 2 that has not been closed by the seller posting "item sold" or "item no longer available" at the end of the thread - likewise, a for sale thread is considered not active if a buyer and seller have clearly agreed upon terms and completely the transaction.

7.If you use this forum to sell something, and delete the opening post or price or change your opening post so that the item and pricing are no longer visible, you'll be removed from this forum. Trying to hide the terms of an offer or sale is dishonest and suspect.

8. If there's a first or second bump within the first 24 hours a thread has been posted, it may be locked. If there's a fourth bump in any thread, it will be locked and/or deleted. When other people post things like "Bump for great deal" it will be counted towards that threads total number of bumps. You are not welcome to repost the items from a thread locked for bump abuse.

9. This is not an advertising forum, it's not a "check this out" forum, it's not a "heads up" forum to direct people to yard sales, eBay sales, sales in tackle shops, flea markets, trade shows, etc. It is for buying, selling and trading specifically between the members of this website.

10. As clear an asking price as humanly possible - including an estimate for shipping if you are charging for shipping. This means no "add PayPal fees" in your threads - that is not a clear asking price. If you want someone to pay the PayPal fees, YOU need to add it to the price. Not +3% - but do the math and make that your asking price. Effective immediately - list your clear asking price, if there is math involved, do the math before you post your clear asking price. "Best offer" sales are not allowed unless they have an asking price as well - phone numbers are not allowed here - "email if interested" sales are not allowed - "PM if interested" sales are not allowed - "email for details" posts are not allowed - you are trying to sell it using this forum, post all the relevant information in your thread please. All sales made through this forum should be as transparent as possible in order to be as fair as possible to everyone.

10A. "Want to Trade" - You must clearly described what you would be willing to accept in trade for your item. We don't allow "let's see what you got" threads. You must be specific in what you are looking for, including condition if relevant.

11. Hijack, on this site, means to attempt to take over or derail. To be clear - if you did not start the WTB thread - unless you are offering to SELL the thread starter what they are looking for STAY OUT OF THE THREAD. In other words, if someone starts a WTB thread - items offered to that person are ONLY offered to that person. It is considered hijacking if you attempt to buy something in their thread - even if they are not interested in the item. Because by your derailing their thread, it is no longer serving it's purpose of helping THEM find the item they wanted. Start your own WTB thread, please do not derail another person's thread by posting your desire to purchase something offered to them.

12. PayPal "Gift" or "Friends and Family" - not allowed here - using them to buy or sell is fraudulent and PayPal offers no recourse to either party should either one be unsatisfied.

12a. No Venmo payment can be requested by sellers here either - turns out there is no recourse from Venmo once a payment is sent.

 

15. In order to protect members from people that do not participate on these forums or have not been here very long, we are now allowing sellers/traders to require signature confirmation and/or insurance on items that they are sending to the new member. Unless otherwise publicly agreed upon, the buyer is responsible for the actual cost of the signature confirmation and/or insurance (rounded to the nearest dollar). This cost will be in addition to any shipping costs already posted in the thread. If the buyer refuses to pay for signature confirmation and/or insurance, the seller can refuse to sell to them. I would not expect this to affect sales of items valued at less than $50, but that will be entirely up to the sellers to make that decision.

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Buyer and Seller's Responsibilities


1. If you are selling something here for someone else, you assume 100% of the responsibilities of the sale as if it were your item.
Since you are bending the rules by selling something for someone that is not registered here (remember - "this forum is for contributing members of this website only"?) --- we will allow those 3rd party sales, but you are 100% responsible for every aspect of that sale, right up until the time the item reaches the buyer and the buyer finds the item acceptable.

2. Sellers responsibilities - for any sale in this forum, including 3rd party sales as noted above:
You are responsible for shipping problems, items lost in shipping, damaged in shipping, items that were not represented properly in your post, and all immediate refunds for items lost/damaged in shipping. The buyer does not have to wait for your refund from the shipper, that is your problem. The buyer does not have to wait for your friend to get the money back to you, that's your problem. When you sell something here, it is your responsibility to follow all the normally accepted rules of selling. The biggest of those is that until the buyer receives an item, that item is considered in your possession and is your responsibility. Just because you shipped it does NOT end your responsibility -- that only ends when the buyer has taken possession of the item. ****We WILL NOT become involved in these such disputes -- but any buyer that reports this particular problem will have the satisfaction of knowing that particular seller will never use this forum again in any manner, buying/selling or trading. It's your responsibility, act like an adult and do the right thing.

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There may be more additions to this list in the future. These points are all open for discussion and I would like to hear how everyone feels about them - I've started a thread to discuss these guidelines here.

Thank you.
TimS and the community at StripersOnline

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(Added 12a making is clear they sellers cannot request Venmo as payment - TimS 9/23/20)
(Added "we don't allow selling/trading of new plugs purchased in the past 60 days" rules - TimS 2/16/19)

(Added to "commercial use" explanation..apparently it wasn't clear enough - TimS 8/29/16)
(Added to Rule #10A - TimS 8/21/16)
(Added to Rule #5 explanation - TimS 3/25/16)
(Added "flipping" and better explanation in "commercial use" section - TimS 3/17/16)
(Added "friends and family" to PayPal "gift" rule - 9/24/15)
(Added Rules #13 and #14 - and added "custom rod" section to commercial use 4/26/15)
(Added Rules #11 and #12 - 3/30/11)
(Added the "to remain a contributing member part 4/06/10 - TimS)