OFT offers guidelines for online auctions

Be careful - it's a jungle out there

As of today, the Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) website has a handy guide to the dos-and-don'ts of Internet auctions.

The OFT has identified some common complaints about such auctions, namely:

Late or non-delivery of items to buyers or non-payment to sellers
Goods of lesser value or substantially different from the description sent to the buyer
Failure to disclose relevant information about a product or terms of sale

Accordingly, it is warning buyers to:

Make sure they understand how feedback facilities work. Feedback, when available, provides users with information about recent transactions by other users
Check an item's description
Ask questions of the seller
Read the terms and conditions including those relating to any dispute resolution procedures offered by the site
Do not be tempted to trade off-site if approached and offered a similar item to one that they have bid on unsuccessfully

More of this good, solid advice can be found here. ®