The latest revision effective from 18^th July 2008.

These rules apply to everyone posting in the AVForums classified forums whether they are the originator of a thread or replying to an existing thread.
They are somewhat detailed, but only because we want to avoid confusion. They are here to help avoid disappointment (from simple wasted time to deliberate fraud), for both the vendors and purchasers. Please read them carefully and abide by the rules every time you post.
The rules are here to protect genuine, honest traders.

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 and give all details about you to the damaged parties and the police.

Note: anyone deliberately defrauding other traders will be dealt with severely. We encourage defrauded traders to seek assistance from the police and we actively assist the police to secure a conviction.

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.
  
• 'Pro traders' are not welcome to trade on the AVForums. A 'pro trader' is someone using our free classifieds as a way to make money selling goods bought for the purpose of reselling. This is contrary to the ethos of our free classifieds.

What may you trade on the AVForums?

You may trade personally owned items which are legal to sell in the UK
You may not trade:

• Pirated material such as copied games, DVDs or any storage media containing same
• OEM software (e.g. MS Windows) which is intended to be sold installed on a computer
• Digital TV cable boxes as these are the property of the cable company
• Stock belonging to a business
• Aeroplane Tickets
• Alcohol
• Animals and Wildlife Products
• Counterfeit Currency and Stamps
• Counterfeit and Trademarked Items
• Credit Cards
• Drugs and Drug paraphernalia
• Firearms and Ammunition
• Fireworks
• Franking Machines
• Football Tickets
• Government IDs, Licences and Uniforms
• Lockpicking Devices
• Lottery Tickets
• Mailing Lists and Personal Information
• Modded game consoles ( with exception of Xbox1 and PSP )
• Mod chips (with exception of Xbox1)
• Multi-level Marketing, Pyramid, Matrix and Trading Schemes
• Offensive Material
• Prescription Drugs and Materials
• Recalled Items
• Shares and Securities
• Stolen Items
• Surveillance Equipment
• Tobacco and Tobacco Products
• Train Tickets
• Travel Vouchers
• Unlocking Software

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.