Anyone who is legally allowed to own an item is allowed to buy or sell it here. The following information is not intended to be a complete guide to all applicable laws. It is your responsibility to be in compliance with all Federal, state, and local laws when using this site.

What does legally allowed mean? You must be an adult who is able to enter into a contract. Again, it is your responsibility to make sure that you comply with the laws of your country, city, and state. We do not tolerate attempted illegal activity here!

There is a minute charge for basic auction listings. If the item sells we charge a final value fee that is based on the selling price of the item. As add-ons to the basic listing we make available optional services designed to offer premium placement and draw more attention to the listing. We charge no 'membership' fees. For full details on our fees navigate to our Fees page.

In a brief summary, you list your item and bidders browse our listings, find your item, and place bids on it. If a user wins your item by meeting or exceeding your price criteria, you must sell the item to the buyer. There is only one exception to the 'must sell' rule: if selling the item to the buyer would violate some law. As the seller, you specify the conditions of the sale including the length of time the auction will run, the payment methods you accept (money order, credit cards, check, COD, Paypal, etc), the method of shipping and cost for shipping, return policy (if any), and any other pertinent terms. Typically the buyer will prepay for the item by money order (depending on your payment terms). When payment has been received, you ship the item to the buyer.

There are two ways this can be accomplished:

1. If the item has not been bid on or if the Reserve Price has not been met, you can use our End an Auction function located in Guide For The Seller to close your auction listing before its scheduled completion date. If the item currently has a winning bidder, you must consider it to be sold and must use the 2nd option.
2. You can direct any interested parties to the auction listing on Train-Xchange.com and suggest that they bid on the item.

Please always keep in mind that if the item is won here, it must be sold to the winning bidder. Although it is a harsh remedy, we terminate the accounts of seller who fail to complete transactions.

Our auction contains a good selection of categories. When listing your item, you should post it in the most appropriate category.

If your item is posted in the wrong category, we will move or remove the listing. We also do not allow posting the same item in multiple categories to get more attention.

When you post an auction listing, you can set a Starting Bid and/or a Reserve Price.

A Starting Bid is the least amount a bidder is allowed to bid in an auction. As the name implies, it is where bidding starts. No bidder can place a bid lower than the Starting Bid. If an auction has a Starting Bid and no Reserve Price, the high bidder on the item will win the item at auction close. Every auction has a Starting Bid, even if the Starting Bid is $.01.

A Reserve Price is the least amount you will sell the item for. The Reserve Price is kept secret from the bidders. A bidder can place a bid that is lower than the Reserve Price, but the item will not be sold unless bidding meets or exceeds the Reserve Price.

Reserve Price auctions are very unpopular with bidders. We receive daily complaints about them. We suggest that you set your Starting Bid to the least amount you will take for the item and let the bidding start. If you have priced your item fairly, you are likely to receive a higher price than your Starting Bid.

You can optionally specify a BuyNow! price on your (non-Dutch) auction. The BuyNow! price is publicly displayed in the item listing. If you specify a BuyNow! price any bidder can elect to give you that price and immediately end the auction, making the bidder the winner of the item. Entering a BuyNow! price allows the bidder to decide to buy the item immediately instead of bidding and waiting for the auction to end.

One potential down side of BuyNow! pricing is that you will never get a higher price for the item than the BuyNow! price, since bidders will elect to exercise the BuyNow! price instead of bidding above it.

You cannot set a BuyNow! Price on a Dutch auction.

The BuyNow! price is not like a Starting Bid nor a Reserve Price in that the BuyNow! price does not affect the minimum amount an item can be won for. If you want to guarantee that you will get a certain amount for an item you must use a Starting Bid or Reserve Price.

Dutch auctions are a special format in which the seller has multiple identical items to sell. You can bid on anywhere from one item to the available quantity of items. At the auction close, all winning bidders win their items at the lowest winning bid price.

For example, a seller may have 5 identical items to sell.  In the auction listing, the quantity posted will be 5, and the bid price is the amount bid for each item. If you want to bid on two items at $10 each, you enter 2 in the Quantity field and 10.00 in the Bid Amount field. You do not enter 20.00 in the bid amount field, as this would be a bid for 2 items at $20 each.

You can identify Dutch auctions by the blue (D) in the item title, and because the quantity listed in the item listing will be greater than one. A Dutch auction cannot have a Reserve Price.

AutoBid is not enabled on Dutch auctions.

You can list an item for sale by navigating to the Create Auction form located on the Seller Home Page. Listing an item is a simple process. In the create auction form, you can upload a picture (if you have one), fill in the auction listing details including Starting Bid, Reserve Price, Item Title, Item Description, etc. once completed with the create auction form click on the "Preview Auction" button and review your item listing to make sure it is correct, check the fees that will be assessed (if any) and submit the item when you are satisfied it is correct.

By far the #1 thing you can do to make your listing appealing is to add a picture.

If an item has not been bid on, you can edit the item listing. You can change the pricing information, move the item to a different category, or upgrade your listing to use some of our optional services. To edit your item, Click on the auction id located on the Seller Home Page. Once an item has been bid on, you can no longer edit or change certain portions of the listing.

You can always add to an item listing, whether the item has been bid on or not. (You can change the description as long as there are no bids). You can add a picture or additional information at any time. Your additions will be clearly time and date stamped.

Our auction site automatically keeps track of items you have bid on, listed for sale, sold, and won. You can access your Bid Status page by navigating the link located at the the top of any page. The Bid Status page contains tabs that you can click on to see the various views of your items. You can select a time frame to further specify the items that you wish to see. For example, to see all items that you sold in the last two weeks, you click on the 'Items I Sold' tab, then select 'Ended in Last Two Weeks' from the 'What auctions would you like to see?' drop-down menu and click the 'Go' button.

There is a special tab called 'Watch List' on your Bid Status page. All items in this list are managed by you. You can add items to this list and remove items from the list. To add an item, click on 'Add this item to your Auction Watch List' located in any item listing. That item will be placed on your Watch List. To remove an item navigate to the Bid Status page, select the 'remove' checkbox(es) of the item(s) you wish to remove, and click the 'Stop Watching Lots'.

If your item was sold, we send you an email at the end of the auction that contains the buyer's user name and email address along with your winning bid amount. If you think you have sold an item and did not get your notification, you may have changed email addresses without telling us or we may be unable to send you your notification due to technical problems with your ISP. Always check the 'Items I Sold' section of your Bid Status page to see if you have sold an item.

From the time the auction closes you have a maximum of seven (7) days to contact the buyer at the email address located in the notification we sent you. The buyer must contact you as well within the same five days. If you do not receive a response from the buyer within the seven days, please check the 'What if I have problems with a buyer?' section of this tutorial.

You should send the buyer clear instructions on making payment. Always include your name, address, phone number, the item number of the auction, the name of our site (Train-Xchange.com), and your email address. Clearly state what forms of payment (check, money order, etc) are acceptable.

If you cannot get in touch with the buyer within the seven-day window, you do not receive payment in a timely fashion, or you are having some other problem with the buyer, please navigate to our Resolving Problems with the Buyer wizard located on the Sellers Guide page. The wizard will help you get the issue resolved.

At the complete of your transaction, you should always post feedback on the buyer. Feedback lets other users know how the seller handled his transaction with you. You can submit feedback using the tools located on the Sellers Home Page page.

When posting feedback, please be honest and unemotional about the transaction. Posting 'the buyer is a jerk' is not very helpful or informative. Posting 'the buyer contacted me promptly but took three weeks to send payment' is informative and truthful.

The buyer gets the chance to reply to your feedback, and you can post a follow-up to his response.

Items that did not sell can be relisted free of charge at the same level of options. We offer two ways for you to relist items that did not sell.

To relist an item and/or change its parameters ( for example, to lower your Reserve Price or change its description ), you can do this from your Seller Home Page.

You can end an auction at any time; however, you must sell the item to the winning bidder if there is a winning bidder when the auction is closed. There is no way to 'withdraw' an item after it has a winning bidder.

Ending an auction early is generally not a good idea if bids have been placed on the item. If there is a winning bidder at the time the auction is closed, you are obligated to sell the item to the winning bidder. Additionally, since many bidders wait until the last minute to place a bid, ending an auction early may reduce the amount you will receive for the item.

To end an auction early, navigate to the "Close Early" function located on the Sellers Home Page.

You can view your account balance, check your month-to-date activity, and print past statements by navigating to the View insertion and Commision Fees function located on the Seller Home Page.

Sellers are required to place a credit card on file before you can list items for sale. Any fees you incur will be accumulated throughout a calender month and then billed to your credit card on file on or about the 1st of the following month. For example, if you sell and item in January your credit card will be charged on the 1st of February.

If your credit card fails to authorize you will not be able to list additional items until you use Billing Information on our Edit User page to update your card on file. If your card fails to authorize your account must be paid promptly; past due users will be suspended from using the site until the balance has been paid in full.

Anyone who is legally allowed to own an item is allowed to buy or sell it here. The following information is not intended to be a complete guide to all applicable laws. It is your responsibility to be in compliance with all Federal, state, and local laws when using this site.

There are two ways to shop for items on Train-Xchange.com: Browsing and Searching.

Browsing - Our home page contains a list of item categories along the left hand side. To see the items contained within a category, click on the category name. This will bring up a list of items within that category. If a category has subcategories, the parent category will contain the items listed both in itself and in its subcategories.

Once you click on a category, you will see a list of all items contained within that category. Each category has two sections, called 'Featured Items in ...' and 'Items in ...'. The Featured section is located at the top of the page. When browsing, don't miss the 'Items in...' section as it is located below the Featured section. Each page contains a set number of items. If there are more items than fit on a single page, the items will be split across multiple pages. You can navigate to another page of items by clicking on 'Prev', 'Next', or a page number.

Just above the Featured section, you will see links that say New Items, Closing Items, lowest Price, and Highest Price. If you click on one of these, you will see the items in that category sorted by the option you chose. For example, New Items will display only the items in that category that were posted by sellers in the last 24 hours. Closing items will display only the items that are to end in the next 24 hours.

To see the details of an item you are interested in, click on the Title or Thumbnail Picture. This will display the item listing which contains a lot more information about the item. You can place a bid from the item listing page.

Searching - You can search for an item you are interested in by using the Search facility located near the top of the home page or the item category pages. You can access our Advanced Search page by clicking on the Search link located at the very top of each page.

When the seller posts an auction listing, he can set a Starting Bid and/or a Reserve Price.

A Starting Bid is the least amount you can bid in an auction. As the name implies, it is where bidding starts. You cannot place a bid lower than the Starting Bid. If an auction has a Starting Bid and no Reserve Price, the high bidder on the item will win the item at auction close. Every auction has a Starting Bid, even if the Starting Bid is $.01.

A Reserve Price is the least amount you can win the item for. The Reserve Price is kept secret from the bidders. You can place a bid that is lower than the Reserve Price, but the item will not be sold unless bidding meets or exceeds the seller's Reserve. You can identify Reserve Price auctions by the red (R) in the item title and by the words 'Reserve Met' or 'Reserve Not Met' next to the Current Bid in the item listing.

Remember when placing a bid on an item with a reserve price your bid will automatically raise to the reserve price or your maximum bid whichever is greater.  Example: An item has a reserve price of $100.00 and you place a bid for 75.00 the bid will automatically be raised to 75.00 however if you place a max bid of 125.00 the bid will only be automatically raised to the reserve price of $100.00.

Some items may have a Buy Now! price. The Buy Now! Price is publicly posted in the item listing. If the item has a Buy Now! Price you can immediately purchase the item for the Buy Now! Price without placing bids and waiting for the auction to close.

Dutch auctions are a special format in which the seller has multiple identical items to sell. You can bid on anywhere from one item to the available quantity of items. At the auction close, all winning bidders win their items at the lowest winning bid price.

For example, a seller may have 5 identical items to sell.  In the auction listing, the quantity posted will be 5, and the bid price is the amount bid for each item. If you want to bid on two items at $10 each, you enter 2 in the Quantity field and 10.00 in the Bid Amount field. You do not enter 20.00 in the bid amount field, as this would be a bid for 2 items at $20 each.

You can identify Dutch auctions by the blue (D) in the item title, and because the quantity listed in the item listing will be greater than one. A Dutch auction cannot have a Reserve Price.

AutoBid is not enabled on Dutch auctions.

Our auction site has a feature called AutoBid. When you place a bid, you are entering the maximum amount you are willing to pay for an item. AutoBid always bids the least it can to win. When you are outbid, AutoBid will raise its bid. It will never bid more than your maximum. If the item has a Reserve Price AutoBid will attempt to meet the Reserve Price. AutoBid is not available on Dutch auctions.

To use AutoBid, simply enter the maximum amount you are willing to pay for the item in themaximum bid field when placing a bid.

If you place a bid and the bid posted is less than what you thought you bid, it is most likely due to our AutoBid system.

You must be a registered user to place a bid. Click here to Register with Train-Xchange.com.

When you have found an item that you are interested in you can place a bid on the item. You place your bid from the item listing page. The bid form is located below the item information, pictures, and description. You can scroll down to get to this form, or click on the picture of the bid card located along the left side of the page.

You should check the seller's feedback rating before placing a bid to see what others have said about him. The seller's feedback rating is located directly directly below the sellers user name. 0 means that the seller does not yet have any feedback. This typically indicates that he is a new seller.  The number in parenthesis indicates how many users have left feedback on this seller. If you click on the feedback rating, you can see the comments that were left about the user.

You should review the terms and conditions posted in the item listing carefully. For example, if the terms state cashier's check or money order, do not assume that the seller will accept a personal check. If shipping charges have not been specified, do not assume that they will be a certain amount. If you have questions about any of the terms, please contact the seller by clicking on the 'Ask seller a question' link.

You should also review the item listing itself carefully. Most problems reported by users are caused when the buyer has failed to do his homework or has assumed the item to be something that it is not. If the item condition is not specified, do not assume it is new or in good condition. Ask the seller! If you do not know what the item is, do not bid until you find out.

Before you place a bid, it is extremely important that you make sure that you want the item. If you have any questions, you must contact the seller and ask him before placing your bid. You can contact the seller by clicking on the 'Ask seller a question' link. If you place a bid and win the item, you will be expected to complete the transaction with the seller. Although it is a harsh remedy, we terminate the accounts of buyers who fail to complete transactions.

Right after you place a bid on an item we show you the status of your bid. If you place a bid that does not meet the seller's Reserve Price, we will tell you that. If you are outbid by another bidder using AutoBid, we will tell you. If you are outbid for any reason, you are no longer obligated to buy the item. You are then free to bid again or pursue another item.

When you place a bid, we send you an email confirming your bid. If another user outbids you, we send you an email message telling you that you have been outbid. However, Internet mail is not guaranteed delivery; just because we sent the message does not guarantee that you received it. You should check on your auctions using the Bid Status page as explained in the Monitoring your auctions section to keep track of your auctions.

Our auction site automatically keeps track of items you have bid on, listed for sale, sold, and won. You can access your Bid Status page by navigating the link located at the the top of any page.

Watch List.  You can add items to this list and remove items from the list. To add an item, click on 'Watch This Item' located in any item listing. That item will be placed on your Watch List. To remove an item navigate to the Bid Status page, select the checkbox(es) of the item(s) you wish to remove, and click the 'Stop Watching Lots' button.

If you win an auction, we send you an email at the end of the auction that contains the seller's user name and email address along with your winning bid amount. If you think you won an auction and did not get your notification, you may have changed email addresses without telling us or we may be unable to send you your notification due to technical problems with your ISP. Always check the 'Items I Won' section of your Bid Status page to see if you have won an auction.

From the time the auction closes you have a maximum of seven (7) days to contact the seller at the email address located in the notification we sent you. The seller must contact you as well within the same seven days. If you do not receive a response from the seller within the seven days, please check the 'What if I have problems with a seller?' section of this tutorial.

The seller will send you instructions on making payment and will request your address for shipping. Typically you will be required to prepay using a money order, although some sellers will take credit cards, personal checks, COD, Paypal, etc. Make sure that you follow the seller's payment instructions carefully. We suggest that if possible you use a US Post Office money order and send payment by US Mail. This way, the US Post Office will be able to help you in case of problems with the seller.

When sending payment, always include your name, address, phone number, the item number of the auction you won, the name of our site (Train-Xchange.com), and your email address. We cannot tell you how many times we hear of problems because the buyer sent a check and included no other information!

If you cannot get in touch with the seller within the seven-day window, you do not receive your item in a timely fashion, or you are having some other problem with the seller, please navigate to our Resolving Problems with the Seller located on the Guide for Buyers page. The wizard will help you get the issue resolved.

At the complete of your transaction, you should post feedback on the seller. Feedback lets other users know how the seller handled his transaction with you. You can submit feedback using the Submit Feedback form located on the Bid Status page or on the Feedback page.

When posting feedback, please be honest and unemotional about the transaction. Posting 'the seller is a jerk' is not very helpful or informative. Posting 'the seller contacted me promptly but took three weeks to ship the item' is informative and truthful.

The seller gets the chance to reply to your feedback, and you can post a follow-up to his response. To view another user's feedback, use the View User Feedback function located on the Feedback page.