Auction Rules, Terms and Conditions

Use of the Mindat Auctions is based on the following rules of use and terms & conditions of usage.

1. "Mindat Auctions" is the name for the collection of classified adverts (placed by users of mindat.org to conduct private sales direct with other users. Mindat.org is not an auctioneer and at no point are any of the items being offered for sale in the possession of mindat.org. Because of this mindat.org cannot guarantee the authenticity, quality or saleability of any item listed on Mindat Auctions. All sales are final, unless otherwise specified, and any complaints regarding the quality of material offered in the auctions should be raised with the seller directly. Should direct communication fail please raise an issue in the auction forum.

2. Mindat Auctions cannot be used by persons of less than 18 years old; those who have been excluded from mindat.org or from Mindat Auctions for any reason or those who are not capable or prepared to follow through their bidding or selling obligations. The Management of Mindat Auctions can deny access or use of the system at any time and for any reason. The use of Mindat Auctions is a privilege, not a right, and may be withdrawn without notice.

3. All offers for sale on Mindat Auctions are private transactions between the seller and a buyer, if a bid reaches the minimum. At no point does Mindat own the items on sale and therefore is not responsible for the success or otherwise of the transaction. Any problems with the transactions must be taken up directly with the other party to the transaction.

4. Mindat reserves the right to recategorize and/or edit item descriptions where it feels the categorization and/or description is incorrect or misleading. This will be done without warning or notification and, in some cases, as an automatic process. If you cannot find your auction in a particular category, make sure you login and look at "My Auctions", where it will be listed if it is still active.

5. Mindat auctions cannot contain any of the following:

* Promotional text, links, etc for other websites or businesses. An auction cannot be used to advertise anything else
* Offensive language (Mindat Management's decision on what is or is not offensive is final)
* Fraudulent claims (for example, that something is natural when it is not), or unprovable claims (for example, that something offers healing benefits)
* Items that are illegal to trade in either the territory of the seller OR the European Union (where Mindat is based), for example this includes firearms related materials, items made from endangered species, explosives
* The phrase "Museum Quality" - which is banned. * Use of all-capital letters, unusual symbols or other distracting content in titles and/or content. Multiple exclamation marks are to be avoided.

6. Public comments to your auctions - As part of the community involvement in keeping mindat auctions as the one honest place to buy and sell minerals online, the community is free to comment on your auctions to discuss the quality, value and authenticity of your items. Sometimes people will criticise your auction items, sometimes they will praise them. You cannot remove negative comments (unless they are offensive or highly inaccurate in which case mindat management will remove them), but you can reply to all comments. Remember all comments are open for all to see. If you do not like the idea of people discussing what you are selling, then try selling somewhere else.

7. Your bid is your maximum bid. Mindat Auctions starts off at the lowest possible bid based on your maximum value and increases this if other bids are made that are lower than your maximum. For example, if the starting price of an item is $0.99 with no bids and you bid a maximum bid of $10.00 your initial bid is $0.99. If no-one else bids on the auction you win it for $0.99, not $10.00. If another bidder bids $2.00 your bid is automatically increased to $2.00 and you are still the winning bidder. Your maximum bid is not known to other bidders or to the auction vendor.

8. All auction times are shown relative to Mindat's standard time, which is GMT. The current server time is reported at the bottom of the page.

9. Problems with mindat auctions or with individuals using the auctions should be reported in the 'Auction' section on the messageboard.

10. We reserve the right to update these terms and conditions at any time without prior notice.