Last updated: October 18th 2009

Last update notes: Policy on mentioning / linking to remote sites ammended / added.

When you register and use this site you agree as follows;

1)    The terms and conditions are permanently evolving; you agree to check these / the current applicable terms and conditions each time before using the site.
2)    Currently this site legally comes under the jurisdiction of Spain.
3)    Users must be and confirm they are at least the minimum age to be able to vote in the country in which they are resident; they do not have to be on the electoral role / citizens of that country, just their age must be the minimum or greater / older.
4)    Currently users (buyers and sellers) must be located in the UK, USA, EU (including other countries in the European Economic Area and / or with economic treaties with the EU), AU, CA or NZ, or be specially invited by a seller. If someone from outside the UK, USA, EU, AU, CA & NZ is put forward by an existing user to be accepted, it is at vbid.me’s sole discretion as to whether that person / company is accepted or not. vbid.me’s decision to limit where users can normally be located is solely due to vbid.me founder’s personal experience with problem areas of the world (Customs / postal service corruption / theft, problematic buyers, Customs regulations, parcel damage, etc.) and is solely to try and make vbid.me as trouble free for buyers and sellers alike.
5)    vbid.me promises to always try and be reasonable and fair.
6)    vbid.me specializes in but is not limited to auctions, buy nows, tender requests etc. for items and / or services which are prohibited and / or afflicted in one way or another by fraud, fakes, restricted bidding blocks on other Internet auction sites.
7)    All items and / or services offered and / or requested (listed / posted) on vbid.me MUST be legal in the country of the seller. If an item requires a permit or license, the seller will ensure such requirements are complied with prior to shipping. Any user listing an item which is illegal in their own country is liable for immediate suspension. Items offered for shipping outside their country must also legally be able to be exported. Users who offer shipping to a country where the item or service is unlawful / illegal after having been warned to cease by vbid.me are liable for immediate suspension. Users who offer to sell items that require permits / licenses to sell, export or own such items yet offer their items without ensuring this are liable for immediate suspension. Buyers who similarly try and buy products and / or services which are unlawful / illegal in their country, and / or try to buy items requiring permits / licenses without these are also liable for immediate suspension.
8)    Buyers and sellers assume and guarantee sole responsibility for their transactions, including but not limited to legal / import / export compliance, loss, damage, accuracy, insurance and legal actions; vbid.me is simply an advertising medium where the advertisers / sellers bear full legal responsibility for their advertisments / auctions / sales, nothing more. vbid.me is not liable for anything above general web site / hosting legal obligations. All users agree to hold vbid.me free of any claim or charge resulting from their buying and selling on this site. If you have an issue with something you bought or sold or someone won but did not pay, although vbid.me will try to be sympathetic to the problem and help prevent it happening again, you agree that your legal recourse is with the other user, not us! Please see our Privacy Policy as we will provide personal details if we are requested to in certain circumstances. Vbid.me is not liable for any loss, cost, injury, fine, crime, compensation or user’s bad hair days howsoever arising.
9)    Users may only have one vbid.me account per person or company. Households may have more than one vbid.me account but accept they are intrinsically linked in regard to the operation of vbid.me and that therefore the suspension of one family member’s account gives vbid.me the right to suspend any or all of that household’s accounts. Users accept determination of whether an account is in the same company, for the same individual and / or in the same household shall be a matter for vbid.me and vbid.me alone but shall only be if evidence exists to support a connection (IP addresses, browser signature, cookie data, payment method duplicity, physical and email addresses, etc.).
10)    Anyone suspended from vbid.me is prohibited from opening another vbid.me account or working with others by proxy to buy and / or sell on vbid.me. vBid.me account holders believed to be assisting a suspended user will themselves be liable to suspension providing evidence exists to support a connection (IP addresses, browser signature, cookie data, payment method duplicity, physical and email addresses, etc.).
11)    Sellers must pay any and all due charges within 30 days of them becoming due or vbid.me will have the unequivocal right to suspend that user.
12)    Sellers may list their items for sale elsewhere but, if they sell an item they have listed on vbid.me somewhere else, they must in any event cancel the auction / sale on vbid.me within 30 minutes of selling it elsewhere. In any event, if a user sells their item / service elsewhere they accept any buyer on vbid.me who wins that item / service on this site but is subsequently denied by the seller, that buyer may leave vbid.me feedback for the seller. If a seller has a higher than a 10% “Sorry, I have already sold it elsewhere” refusal to honour on vbid.me rate (based on the number of items they had listed on vbid.me at the time) and / or lets more than 2 vbid.me buyers down in any given 30 day period, vbid.me has the right to suspend that user.
13)    Buyers who bid and win / buy items and services on vbid.me must pay for them within 14 days or secure agreement with the seller to back out of the transaction or have a very good reason (personal finances not accepted) for not completing the transaction. If a buyer does not pay within the time frame the seller may request vbid.me to terminate that buyer’s account. Sellers may specify shorter or longer payment terms. In the case of shorter payment terms the seller may leave negative feedback for the buyer although they will have to wait until the 14 days is up before asking for that buyer to be suspended.
14)    Buyers who have not paid or have been involved in a payment problem may NOT leave neutral or negative feedback for the seller if the seller is blameless for that problem. Buyers may only leave feedback once they have paid. Buyers may not leave negative feedback because of non-delivery of an item sent registered delivery which is beyond the seller’s control except a) where that non-delivery is a result of Police, Security or Customs seizure on the seller’s side or b) the seizure is as a result of a false waybill / Customs declaration by the seller. Buyers may not leave negative feedback for sellers in the event an item was damaged in transit unless it is clear the seller did not pack the item adequately (please refer to the packing recommendations of the carrier involved to determine this) or that there is evidence the damage happened before the item was sent (e.g. damaged item but undamaged packaging).
15)    Sellers may not leave negative feedback for buyers where the buyer has paid but has not received the item or where the item is damaged.
16)    There must be no revenge feedback, at all. Feedback must always be accurate and fair. Buyers and sellers may request any negative feedback to be removed on the basis it was unfairly made. vbid.me charges 10 Euros per request to remove the negative feedback of another user (can be more than 1 item / set of feedback linked to a single transaction). If vbid.me considers the feedback to be fair, it will remain and the charge will be kept. If vbid.me considers the feedback to be significantly unfair, it will be removed, the charge will be 50% refunded and the other user will be asked for the other 50% or face suspension. If vbid.me considers the feedback to be totally unfair, the charge will be refunded and the other user will be asked to pay it or face suspension.
17)    All listings on vbid.me are public and the “Ask the seller a question” feature publishes any questions / text immediately, irrespective of whether the seller chooses to reply or not. Sellers can however request vbid.me remove abusive, unsubstantiated allegations, unfair and / or unrelated text. Users who suspect a seller of offering an illegal, wrongly described, stolen and / or fraudulent item may put this to the seller using the “Ask the seller a question” feature providing what they have to say is civil and substantiated.  If the text is considerable and / or includes a link to another web site as evidence, the user should first publish their concerns / allegations including any links on a bulletin board / forum site such as Antique Swords Forum and then use the “Ask the seller a question” feature here on vbid.me and say “I think this item is stolen / a repro / falsely described, please see my post here: antique-swords.org link”. Only links to antique-swords.org are tolerated in this respect. Users who violate this policy and attempt to abuse the “Ask the seller a question” feature may be suspended at vbid.me’s sole discretion.
18)    Vbid.me reserves the right to suspend any user who lists / posts items which are or appear fraudulently or very inaccurately described, or are likely Trademark violations (fakes, copies, reproductions), or are likely stolen, or appear to be illegal / unlawful (either in their country or where they are offering shipping to).
19)    Sellers must offer shipping to all users / buyers irrespective of their location unless there is a good reason for not doing this; the reason needs to be explained by the seller on the listing. vbid.me does not tolerate any nationalistic or racist sentiment in this or any other respect.
20)    Vbid.me allows the listing of contentious items such as, for example, Nazi German items bearing swastikas, etc. if they are a) legal in the country of the seller and b) not knowingly sold to anyone in a country where they are illegal (the buyer ultimately being responsible but sellers may also if they have been warned previously by vbid.me). BUT vbid.me does not support or tolerate any extremist views or behaviour whatsoever. Vbid.me may suspend the account of any user it believes is abusing vbid.me for unlawful and / or illegal and / or hate and / or racist and / or malicious ends.
21)    User’s that are suspended must resolve their issues with vbid.me‘s owners / customer services in order for that suspension to be lifted. vbid.me irrevocably reserves the right to revoke any special and / or accrued benefits that a user previously enjoyed prior to their suspension even if and when that suspension is lifted UNLESS the suspension is agreed / ruled unfair. Suspended users may of course debate their suspension on antique-swords.org as suspension on vbid.me does not affect their registration on other sites. Vbid.me is prepared to submit to arbitration regarding suspensions agreed by all parties providing the suspended user pays for it.
22)    You agree vbid.me can and will send you emails pertaining to the status of your account, auctions, bids etc. and system / service announcements and special offers on vbid.me (but we will not pass your email details to others).
23) vBid.me is not responsible for any technical failures of the web site past resolving these as soon as possible.
24)    You agree that if you use the user name of someone else on eBay or another auction site who registered that name before you, we may require you to change your user name and may allocate one of our own choice to you.
25) Further terms and conditions may be found on our General Guidelines and Listing Guidelines pages; these shall form a part of the terms and conditions here.
26) (added October 19th 2009) Sellers may only link or otherwise mention reference web site content except when using the vbid.me special offer feature when they are able to link to their own web site. Linking to or mentioning specifics of other auctions sites which may have the impact of tempting other vbid.me users to visit and use those sites is forbidden; vbid.me management being the sole determinator / adjudicator in such matters.