Rules for classifieds

The classifieds form to post the ad can have a few added fields and a bit of tweak to solve this. A drop down for payment method, a price and if PayPal is selected a dynamic message next to it on the lines of 'you will receive £xxx - 4%' so the seller is aware and can make adjustment to price.

its 3.4% plus 20p

I've had that this week, so I refunded the buyer and said either gift it or pay the fee your end.

Seller has gone cold so I can only guess he either doesn't trust me or didn't fancy paying an additional £2.72 - oh well...

Either way, I don't agree that the buyer on LFGSS (L stands for London BTW) should be obliged to take a hit on something because the seller who doesn't live in the L wants access to this local gold mine of good deals, and then wants it posted.

Factoring in my time, after going to the flipping post office, I should add £50 to the cost. Buyers should appreciate that sellers (most of us) offering postage services are not profiteering mercenaries but actually doing a favour for fellow members that they'd rather not be doing.

The very least they can do is suck up the 3.4% + 20p

BITD if you bought something off of LFGSS you'd cycle all the way across town to meet a stranger in a pub and hand them a £20 note. Prolly stay for a beer and talk shit for an hour, leaving as friends.

All that's left from that is a shit way for lurkers to offload their stuff for free and to dodge eBay fees. Most make little to no tangible contribution to the forum in any other way.

KILL CLASSIFIEDS!!

What % of site traffic is classified anyway?

Why I've stopped even thinking about selling stuff, most of the on here people seem to have stopped looking at the classifieds or aren't as fast as the army of lurkers.

I'm jost throwing it out there.... I'm looking for a Colnago C40, 48 to 51CM. frame or complete bike. thanks.

Post on here mate

https://www.lfgss.com/microcosms/550/

@Velocio

I saw your comment about allowing links to eBay ads and thought this was the best place to reply.

I think this would be counter-productive: by putting buyers and sellers in contact on here, you are providing the means to bypass eBay and the protection it offers.

Occasionally people will post eBay sales on here (in the black market or relevant threads, eg PC parts in the PC thread) and invariably note that they'll sell it cheaper on here, ie outside of eBay.

I can't see any way of ensuring that eBay sales stay within eBay if they're advertised on here.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what LFGSS could have been done to save the OP from himself: he published his email address on the internet and paid via Western Union. It not certain that the scammer even has a LFGSS account.

A script to delete email addresses would ensure that you at least have the opportunity to review someone's profile (longstanding user with no tags in bad traders vs signed-up to respond to ad), but if someone's happy to send money to a stranger via WU, then I'm not sure they would exercise caution then.

Deleting email addresses would make paying via paypal on here more difficult

Good point!

"In the open" rather than via PM?

But I was trying to illustrate how even that wouldn't necessarily help: if they want something badly enough, sometimes people ignore even the obvious warning signs.

I can't really protect people from themselves :)

But at the moment I'm prohibiting them from using a system that does protect them from themselves.

What I am thinking is that advertising on eBay could be permitted, so long as the advert made here offered something in addition to the eBay advert... i.e. cheaper price for direct sale, more info, different terms, etc.

To figure out how to not exclude a sales mechanism that actually goes some way to reduce fraud and scams. Most of the scams on here would've been trivially blocked by eBay and PayPal being enforced.

I like the simplicity no here of it simply being "stuff for sale here isn't for sale anywhere, all adverts are active and maintained"... but we do virtually nothing about what fraud and scams do occur, except to ban people, but that's useless as people can just use a different email and sign up again.

Here is the text of an email I received shortly after completing a transaction outside of ebay.
I had contacted the Seller with a very specific question. He agreed to send pictures by email and asked me to phone him. He then offered a discount of more than 10% to me, but inexplicably would only accept payment through Paypal gift. I had expected him to have a credit card facility.
'Here’s a summary of the main changes:
• We’ve added new terms to the User Agreement to clarify that users are not permitted to complete outside of eBay any sales transactions with each other arising from items listed on the eBay platform. Offers to buy and sell or communicate outside of eBay constitute policy violations and may be subject to a range of actions including limits on buying and selling privileges as well as the application of final value fees for such transactions, the application of fees for the introduction of a seller to a buyer and the recovery of expenses for policy monitoring and enforcement. The same can result from sharing or requesting contact information with the intention to trade outside of eBay. You can read the relevant policy here.
• We have included language which means that we may deduct fees, charges or other amounts which you owe us from an eBay credit balance held or controlled by you.
As with earlier updates, we’ve made other changes to keep the User Agreement up to date with the products and services we provide.
You don’t need to take any further action to accept the new User Agreement. If you choose not to accept the new terms, visit this help page for further information.
Regards,
The eBay Team'

Cool... so basically they can't have a variant advert on here if they're advertising there.

Pretty much precludes allowing eBay duplicated adverts on here, unless the advert on here simply points there.

Apologies,
that text was in a box.
Above it was this;
'These changes are effective immediately for new members and from 22 October 2017 for current members.'

From earlier part of thread, if a donation helps verify a user then in place of making it compulusory is there a way where you can add 'paypal verified donor' to a users profile, it can then be optional and market forces should do the rest.

Even if a user has been verified somehow I will still always pay using PayPal goods&services.

I will still always pay using PayPal goods&services.

And so you should.

It's not about "trust" (ie protection against getting scammed) as so many people seem to think: if I'm knocked-down by a bus/abducted by aliens/subject to CIA rendition before I get to the Post Office, then the buyer would still be out of pocket even though I haven't been dishonest.

Any way to police people doing annoying 'bumps' when an edit of post would be more appropriate?

Moved to eBay (basically still for sale with no price drop)
Moved to wiferadar (as above)
SOLD (great, thank you for bumping your 2 week old thread to the top)

I think this is pretty well policed already isn’t it?

I’ve just found a thread on the retrobike classifieds that is 103 yep, a hundred and fucking three! pages of a guy posting “bump” or “up”. Sometimes once every couple days, sometimes 2 or 3 times in the same day!

Retrobike classifieds moves at a snails pace compared to here too so there’s no way all those bumps have been to move his thread back to the front page, some musta been just bumping it higher up the same page!

I think this is pretty well policed already isn’t it?

Random bumping is well policed but weird bumping for the reasons above is not - possibly because we don’t seem to be clear on the rules. See the moderators thread.

‘Moved to eBay’ seems like breaking the exclusivity rule

‘Moved to <other site>’ the same

‘Sold’ should be a title update. I get how having the final post as ‘Sold’ is useful but an immediate title change and thread close a few weeks later probably works as well and doesn’t bump the thread.

Hi, for some reason I can’t post in the wanted section ? Can anyone assist ? Thanks

I haven't been on the forum for long, but I've been on quite a few other forums, so I'll post my opinion anyway - I'm not sure I agree with you on this tbh.

‘Moved to eBay’ seems like breaking the exclusivity rule

Well, you should be allowed to stop an offer / sale. That is basically what 'moved to ebay' tells me - no longer available on this forum. Is it a problem that I know it is now on ebay? I'd say it should just come with an automatic thread lock.

‘Sold’ should be a title update. I get how having the final post as ‘Sold’ is useful but an immediate title change and thread close a few weeks later probably works as well and doesn’t bump the thread.

Yes - but if anything, the thread should just be closed / locked immediately. If the sale is over, there is no reason to keep the thread alive, it will only clog up the Classifieds.

That is basically what 'moved to ebay' tells me - no longer available on this forum.

Yes but if I PM Amey and say 'hey can I buy your bike'

...if he says yes he is breaking both the exclusivity rule and eBays T&Cs

...if he says no it's sold it means his ad. has violated the principle that was behind exclusivity, in that if something is advertised here and it is not marked as SOLD, then it is still available (unless the ad. is like two years old or something).

...if he says no go buy it on eBay is he is a bit odd.

tl;dr end a classified with 'Moved to eBay' you are contributing to ducking up the classifieds , just end it by deleting the ad. and locking the thread.

If the sale is over, there is no reason to keep the thread alive, it will only clog up the Classifieds.

I think in an iteration of the classified rules it was required to keep the thread open in case the item was not as described and the buyer wanted to leave feedback.

I'm not really so bothered because I'm not buying bike shiz at the moment, but it has felt the classifieds have been on the slide over the last couple of years, and I think these 'on here and eBay' by stealth ads. are part of it.

...if he says yes he is breaking both the exclusivity rule and eBays T&Cs

Sure but he can do that regardless of whether he tells the world it's on ebay or not. Also, if someone closes a sale thread without it having been sold, isn't it on ebay in 90% of the cases anyway?

and I think these 'on here and eBay' by stealth ads. are part of it.

I think the cases that are actually bad is when it's on both at the same time, but they don't tell you about it, nicely breaking the rules on both sites. Personally I don't think it's unfair to inform people 'hey this is on ebay now' after a prolonged period of no one buying it on the forum. I'd see it differently if the forum was just used as an 'announcement' platform to drum up interest for the ebay sale.