Ventari’s Corner Etiquette Question

I have some rules or general etiquette questions about Ventari's Corner Buy/Sell.

When did buy out become the "starting offer" for something. It finally happened to me today. I bid b/o on a lot of 80 plus unids around 10am, I finally found the seller in game around 5pm. I was told sorry just some them for more than buy-out. I told him that I was glad my posted buy-out offer helped him get more than his posted asking buy-out price.

I have noticed many posts where after someone posts a b/o offer, others keep posting, and posting with higher and higher offers.

==> What does b/o really mean when posted by either the seller or the wanna be buyer?

Most sellers put some verbage about blah, blah, blah, basically saying they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, go pound sand if you are not happy. I have 3 or 4 open bids posted. If sellers can say sorry I sold the item when you contact them, can buyers do the same thing? Sorry the post I made two weeks ago, 6 days ago, 4 hours ago, I don't need or want any longer?

==> What are the rules for buyers and sellers about completing the transaction?


Last question, one post I have an open bid on, is being bumped by the seller going on 7 days now. The post lists no ending time nor does it list the sellers IGN. Again, I am glad to help the seller get higher prices by showing interest in his items.

==> What are the general expectations for what appears to be an open ended auction?

Thanks.

you can retract a bid any time you want for virtually any reason as far as i know.

Ive seen auctions last for not days but weeks. its at the sellers discretion.

I think the bottom line is none of it is some sort of legally binding contract. This is all done as a convenience(sic) for the players. I may be wrong but ive never seen much of an issue. Most people honor Buyouts. But as is often the case there are those who dink the system every chance they get.



Cronk

There are no rules as far as whether or not the item actually gets sold to the highest bidder.

For insatance...the startng bid.
If you bid the starting bid and no1 else takes an interest in the item(s), the seller will most likely say "Sorry, I expected to get more than that..."
IF YOU EXPECTED TO GET MORE THEN WHY MAKE THE STARTING BID 100G?

If you want "fair" delivery, try the auction house. You can get suspended from the auction house if you don't actually sell / buy to the highest bidder. However, because of this, items tend to be more expensive there.

What goes around comes around. Nothing you can do about the situation anyways.

I can empathize with all that. What most annoying thing for me is when someone makes a "1k s/b on everything!!" thread yet there's a hidden reserve. Or just in general and hidden reserve is stupid. If that's the minimum they'll go for then set that as the s/b. Attracting low bids that they won't accept is just a waste of time.. if anything the only thing that it accomplishes is that it helps bump the thread up.

With that said, this is not by any means an official auction house of any sorts. No one is truly obligated to faithfully fulfill these so called contracts. Of course, there are some of us that abide by a basic set of "business" etiquette and we expect others to be at least on par by that standard. But in a place where there is nothing that governs these transactions/auctions, all one can do is suck it up.

As for your questions:
1. b/o, as interpreted by you, is practically the asking price of which once reached is sold to the buyer that made the offer. Even the greedy people that decide to sell it for more after someone else has offered buy-out understands it as that.

2. It's simply a waiting game. What I normally do is (when I bid on those kind of auctions) is just check on it on a daily basis for up to a week, then afterwards I retract my bid if I sense that either my offer is too low (therefore lack of interest) or the seller is too incompetent to even have the courtesy of updating their thread (I wouldn't want to deal with this kind of person anyways) - unless of course the seller constantly updates the c/o on the item and you can get a good feel of what price range the seller is really looking for.

I've developed the habit of not wasting my time with threads that have any of the following characteristics:
- Made by a newcomer (no offense... and doesn't apply to all of you) - in general the chances of them updating their thread is slim
- The structure of their sell post doesn't provide sufficient information
- "1k s/b" kind of crap without any form of ETA on auction length - especially the ones that also say: "I reserve the right to not sell the items if a decent offer is not met" - then what's the point of having a s/b?
- Lack a b/o - this only sometimes, really depends on other conditions

Well goodluck, see you around.

Quote: Originally Posted by silv3rr

I can empathize with all that. What most annoying thing for me is when someone makes a "1k s/b on everything!!" The idea behind 1k s/b's is that you get potentially more bids thus more exposure and more free bumps. Yes it's that simple.

Quote: Originally Posted by byteme!

The idea behind 1k s/b's is that you get potentially more bids thus more exposure and more free bumps. Yes it's that simple. Yes, that is what I practically stated in the rest of that paragraph.

Quote: Originally Posted by Young_Ranger

If sellers can say sorry I sold the item when you contact them, can buyers do the same thing? Sorry the post I made two weeks ago, 6 days ago, 4 hours ago, I don't need or want any longer?

==> What are the rules for buyers and sellers about completing the transaction?
Is the money/ectos/whatever I was going to pay with still on my account?
Do I want to buy the item I made a bid on?

If you can't answer yes to both of those questions, don't make the trade. Simple as. The other person does not need a reason, nor can you be arrested by the guildwars police.

This is the main reason I stopped using the sell forums here. It's like the wild wild west. I won a high end item legitimately once and the seller later said he wasn't interested in selling. He changed his mind and wants to keep it.

I did a search on his forum posts and noticed that he "sells" this same item about every 3 months always retracting.

I asked the same question about etiquette to a Ventari mod and the mod said it's allowed. No rules.

Anyways, I've found a much better auction site. I'd post the link, but the mods here delete it whenever I do.

Quote: Anyways, I've found a much better auction site. I'd post the link, but the mods here delete it whenever I do. The only reason a link or post would be deleted is because it breaks a forum specific rule. For example, if you went into a thread in Ventari's and posted the link without bidding on the item or posted a fake bid. That would result in the link being deleted along with the rest of the post.

I'd also venture a guess and say you haven't tried to buy anything from the site in a good while. Since maybe, December of 2008? Staff and the guidelines for the forum have changed quite a bit since then. You'll probably find Ventari's a very different place now. And you can always post feedback in a seller's thread after contacting a moderator about the issue. If someone is found to be a continual abuser of the system, they will be dealt with.

Linking to another site is not against the forum guidelines. But this is all fairly off-topic anyway. Also, I'll move this thread to Site Feedback.

To the OP: feel free to PM our Ventari's Super Moderator Illfated Fat or any of the other Ventari's moderators whenever you have questions.

I would suggest that you use Guru Auctions if you want some stability to the bidding system. While people on GA can still lack etiquette and not sell or buy what they promised, there is at least some attempt to regulate things there. The rating system works fairly well - if you see that seller has a bad rep, you can simply choose to do business with some other seller.

To answer your questions though - b/o is supposed to be Buy Out and it's supposed to be the price at which a seller will sell the item. But there's always people who will abuse the term because they have no honor or they just don't understand the concept.

As far as the rest goes, there are really no enforceable rules in the buy/sell forums. You're basically on your own. So, like I said, if you want more structure use the Auction site instead.

Quote: Originally Posted by CronkTheImpaler you can retract a bid any time you want for virtually any reason as far as i know.

Ive seen auctions last for not days but weeks. its at the sellers discretion.

I think the bottom line is none of it is some sort of legally binding contract. This is all done as a convenience(sic) for the players. I may be wrong but ive never seen much of an issue. Most people honor Buyouts. But as is often the case there are those who dink the system every chance they get.



Cronk Cronk has the right of things here.

We only set the scene and certain "rules of engagement" for trading.
While most traders will indeed honor their commitments (like B/O being binding), a few only care about maximizing their profit.

Quote: Originally Posted by Quaker I would suggest that you use Guru Auctions if you want some stability to the bidding system. While people on GA can still lack etiquette and not sell or buy what they promised, there is at least some attempt to regulate things there. The rating system works fairly well - if you see that seller has a bad rep, you can simply choose to do business with some other seller. Like Quaker suggests: If you want stability and well defined binding rules, Auctions might indeed be the option for you.

Quote: