Classified Ads Rules - Read Before Buying

Well I made some great purchases through this forum and I would definitely miss the section a lot... the rules I follow are simple, I check if the accounts exists on the VI forum for at least a year or more and I go check the posts of that person across the forum to see if he "reads" cool and contributes to the debate in a meaningful way... those are in general pretty awesome people to make deals with.

If the account is a newer one with 0 posts or a couple of strange replies I don't even bother.

As with other areas, use your Spidey-sense and don't risk more than you're willing to lose. But there is a preponderance of good folks on here and it seems the thread self-polices to a large degree.
I'm 2 for 2 with positive transactions that I doubt I could have found elsewhere and I believe the classifieds are an asset to the forum.

<rant>
If I may, I would like to express one bit of frustration with some of the "for sale" threads on VI-C. In some cases, people are "selling" a link to a freebie they have found. You discover this only when you go through the purchase, and they end up linking you to a site to claim a license rather than transferring a license to you through the vendor's standard process.

My initial reaction was "hats off to these sellers on VI-C for being industrious". I was not previously aware of these freebies and would have likely paid more for these products. After more reflection, however, I realized that some of these links were not intended to be shared and likely violate certain terms of use. For example, one VI-C seller, after my purchase, directed me to a link to claim my license, which was an incentive for people who bought a particular piece of hardware. The link worked, even though I never purchased the hardware, simply because that vendor was counting on security through obscurity. In some cases, these free licenses will end up being NFR licenses as well, which is not disclosed in the VI-C sale posting.

I am not going to call out specific sellers here, but many of these cases are very easy to spot on VI-C. Simply look at the VI-C postings that stay open for a long time, where the list of products does not change. In most of these, you will see many people thanking the seller for the fast and easy purchase of Product-X, only to notice that other people also bought Product-X, and somehow magically, Product-X is still available for purchase. Another tip-off is that in some of these cases, the VI-C seller is willing to send you the download link as a show of good faith even before you make your payment. This is because they have zero risk as they are not actually selling you a license.
</rant>

carlc said:

<rant>
If I may, I would like to express one bit of frustration with some of the "for sale" threads on VI-C.
</rant>

Click to expand...

Please do!
I have mixed feelings about the classifieds, for several reasons, most of which are driven by a lack of scruples. We are not supposed to sell licenses to which we have no rights, yet it happens. This covers a lot of turf, from the obvious reselling a license that can't be resold to the good old account transfer to "selling" free stuff that is legitimately free to selling stuff that is free to the original purchased.

Similarly, no one is supposed to be running a web store, but it is happening all the time.

When I first arrived here (it was a dark and stormy night) I took advantage of some of those sales. I was very cautious, probably missed out on more deals because they "looked" shady.
These days I peruse the section infrequently, just to see what's happening.

It probably would be a loss to the community if we shut it down, but it still bugs me.