Help:Marketplace Rules
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Purpose
The Marketplace forum is provided as a service to MacRumors members. Its purpose is to allow MacRumors members to buy/sell/trade items they own with other members. The rules, which have been fine-tuned over time, are designed to make the Marketplace serve its purpose efficiently.
All threads offering items for sale or trade, asking to buy items, or asking for pricing advice on items to be sold must be posted in the Marketplace forum and are subject to these rules. Members not eligible for the Marketplace forum may not start threads for such purposes.
The Marketplace is for individual-to-individual sales and are not to be used by or for any commercial business or to promote fundraising efforts. If you represent a business looking to advertise on this site, contact MacRumors.
There are other websites more specifically devoted to buying, selling, and trading computer equipment, and to tracking buyer/seller reputations. The reason we have our own Marketplace is that it provides more focus on Mac products and is convenient for members who already know each other from the other forums.
Although items in the Marketplace are primarily Mac-related, they are not limited to Mac items.
When referring to Marketplace Rules, use the rule titles rather than the rule numbers, since rule numbers may change over time. Example: Seller Rule: Bumps.
Can't Start a Thread?
Before you can start a thread in the Marketplace forum, you need a minimum post count of 100, as displayed in your User Profile. Posts in the Marketplace and certain other forums do not count toward this total. Details are in the Forum Rules. If you start a "for sale" thread or make other Marketplace-type posts in another forum to avoid the minimum post requirement, your thread/posts will be deleted.
This requirement is designed to limit those offering sales, purchases, or trades to members who have been around the forums enough to become known. Although new members may be perfectly responsible buyers or sellers, other members have few ways to confirm that at MacRumors. The lack of a post history in the discussion forums has proven to be a detriment to dealmaking.
General Rules
- Forum rules. All regular Forum Rules apply to the Marketplace forum.
- Ownership. The Marketplace is for personal sales/trades of items owned by the members involved. You may not buy, sell, or trade on behalf of others. You must be in physical possession of any items offered for sale at the time they are offered.
- Commerce. The Marketplace is not for commercial business.
- Fundraising. The Marketplace may not be used for fundraising.
- Terms and Conditions. The Marketplace may not be used for transactions that bypass, or are intended to bypass, the Terms and Conditions of a product or service. This includes rules about product resale, service transfer, and the iTunes Music Store requirement that each international store be used from within its own territory (example: iTMS U.S. Terms of Service).
- Feedback. MacRumors does not maintain its own feedback system. If you have feedback elsewhere, you can post a link to it (and mention the name you use at that site) as a way to convey your credentials to others. Site with feedback systems include ebay, HEATWARE, and Agora. Both parties to a successful transaction may post when the transaction is complete to give credit to the other.
- Disclaimer. MacRumors does not and cannot evaluate sales, items, sellers, buyers, or prices. These rules are intended to maintain order and to assist, rather than impede, personal sales and trades among forum members, but cannot ensure that every offer is legitimate or fairly priced. MacRumors is not responsible for the actions of forum members in carrying out the terms of sales, purchases, and trades.
- Common sense. Use common sense and be straightforward in your dealmaking. Observe the spirit, not just the letter, of these rules. When in doubt about a rule, ask a moderator.
- Rule violations. If you think a sale, buyer, seller, or other forum member is breaking Forum Rules or these Marketplace Rules, report it using the Report Bad Post feature. Don't police the sale yourself.
Rules for Sellers
- Eligibility. To start a Marketplace thread, you must be a forum member with user title Regular or above, which means that you have 100 or more posts as displayed in your User Profile. This gives other members a chance to become familiar with you. To see your User Profile, click Quick Links -> My Profile at the top of a forum page.
- Sincerity. Offer to sell or trade only if you are serious about doing so.
- One thread. Create a single thread for a given item or set of items to be sold or traded together. Duplicate threads are not permitted.
- Thread title. Use a short description of the item(s) as the thread title. A typical thread title might be FS: 15" 1.67GHz PowerBook. Your thread title does not need full system specs since you'll post details in the thread. If you are selling only in a particular country or geographic area, you might include that in the title, e.g., FS/T: 17" eMac (U.K.) Commonly used abbreviations include:
- FS: (for sale) -- same as WTS: (want to sell)
- FT: (for trade) -- same as WTT: (want to trade)
- FS/T: (for sale or trade) -- same as WTS/T: (want to sale or trade)
- FA: (for auction)
- WTB: (want to buy)
- Feelers. Adding the word "Feeler" to the thread title invites others to comment on your proposal and critique your offer or price (see Buyer/Trader Rule: Exceptions below).
- Description.
- Post full description(s) of the item(s). Even if you post a link to ebay or other sale/trade/auction site, you must include the description in your Marketplace thread so that potential buyers/traders can evaluate what you are offering by what you post in the forums. The MacRumors Marketplace is not to be used simply for advertising your sales or offers elsewhere.
- Be clear what items are included or not included and what their condition is. Potential buyers/traders will respond better to factual descriptions (model numbers and specs) than to infomercial-style superlatives or posts in ALL CAPS.
- Price. If you don't post an asking price, that is likely to be the very first question, so include one from the start if at all possible. Ask for a price that you consider reasonable and will accept.
- Additional information. Members often ask for photos, your location, the reason you are selling/trading, methods of payment and shipping, and/or whether you have seller feedback from previous transactions. It may help you to anticipate these questions and provide the information up front, particularly if you are a lesser-known forum member.
- Licensing.
- You may not offer to buy/sell/trade any computer, hard disk, iPod, Apple TV, or other device containing music, video, unlicensed commercial software, or other software/files/data that is sold commercially. You should reset an iPod or Apple TV to factory settings before offering it for sale or trade. If you are selling/trading a computer with other than the software it originally shipped with (or free updates since then), you must explicitly state that master discs (CDs or DVDs) for that software will be included, as an indication that you are transferring the original installation media and the end-user license (EULA) to the other party. This rule is strictly enforced.
- You may not avoid this rule by claiming that software or music is to be erased by the other party or that it is for "testing purposes only".
- If you mention currently installed music, your post may be edited or your thread closed or deleted.
- If you mention currently installed commercial software (e.g., Final Cut Pro, MS Office or a new, more recent O.S.) and do not mention the master discs, your post may be edited or your thread closed or deleted. When you leave it ambiguous, you do not get the benefit of the doubt.
- Posting. Post in your thread for any of these reasons. Otherwise, wait for responses and accept that you may or may not get them.
- to answer questions or respond to posts by others
- to announce when the sale/trade has been made or the items are no longer available (so that other members won't continue to post or contact you)
- to announce a nontrivial price change
- to announce other nontrivial changes in the items, availability, or offer
- Bumps. As in all threads, "bump" posts (those that simply bring your thread to the top of the New Posts list) are not permitted because they are unfair to other members' threads. This rule applies not only to posts that say "bump" but to those with the intent to bump, including trivial changes to the offer, "last chance" posts counting down the time remaining, or new threads started to sell the same items. Since all interested parties should have Private Messages enabled and be checking them (see next rule), there is no need to make posts saying "PM sent".
- Messages. Make sure that the Enable Private Messaging feature is checked in the Edit Options page of your User Control Panel. Watch for Private Messages, as well as posts in your thread, since potential buyers/traders may prefer to contact you privately rather than post in the thread. Enabling the Receive Email from Other Members feature in the Edit Options page of your User Control Panel is optional. If you enable it or post your e-mail address in the thread, watch for e-mail too. Plan to respond promptly, after no more than a day, to offers or after a deal is made. Make sure your Private Message mailbox isn't full. Answer questions posed in the thread by interested parties.
Rules for Buyers and Traders
- Interest. If you are interested in the sale/trade, you may ask questions or make an offer by posting or by contacting the seller privately through Private Message or e-mail (if enabled). If you have trouble contacting them or you don't hear back after more than a day, you can post in the thread to ask if they got your message (see Seller Rule: Messages above).
- Sincerity. Offer to buy or trade only if you are serious about doing so.
- Hijacking. If you have similar items for sale or trade, start your own thread. Do not post about your sale in someone else's thread.
- Offers. If you are an interested buyer/trader but don't like the price, make what you consider to be a reasonable offer or see the Non-interest Rule below.
- Non-interest. If you have no need for the items or don't like the price, items, payment method, or other terms, ignore the thread. Do not post negative remarks about the sale or seller based on their offer, or suggest to others that they buy other products or buy/trade at other sites. Do not post unsolicited price advice or comparisons of the offer with those from other sources. Do not try to derail somebody else's sale by posting in the thread. Let shoppers make their own decisions.
- Exceptions. Exceptions to the Non-interest rule:
- You may post comments about prices or comparable offers elsewhere for threads named "Feeler" or for which the thread-starter has explicitly solicited advice.
- You may send Private Messages or e-mail to other members to make an offer, and justify your offer based on comparable offers and prices elsewhere.
- You may send Private Messages or e-mail to other members involved in a transaction, including pricing suggestions to a seller, with the understanding that they are free to heed or ignore your advice and that you may not send repeated unsolicited e-mail to other members.
