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Frequently Asked Questions |
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How do I begin buying and selling?
To sell on PCS Auctions you need to first register for an account. Then verify your identity though our verified program. An email will be sent to the address you provide when registering. Simply click on the provided link to get verified and begin selling and buying on PCS Auctions. How much does it cost to sell on your site? Basic auction listings are FREE on PCS Auctions. As well, our Classified Ads are FREE. There are no hidden final sale fees or charges.
There are very small fees for using our Creative Features and Stores but these are entirely optional.
To view our fees, please visit our Listing Fees page. We also offer Preferred Seller's Subscriptions for our frequent users. Do I need a PayPal account to sell my items? No, our auction listings are free. We offer PayPal because it is a very reliable and secure way to trade but it isn't required. You can choose to only accept cash, checks or other means of private payment with your customers.
If you choose to use our Creative Features, Preferred Seller's Subscription, or open a Store you will need a PayPal account to pay our fees. You can sign-up for an account by clicking the PayPal link. Can I advertise my business or services on your website? Yes, of course! Our Classified Ads are FREE to use. If you don't find your type of business in our Categories list, please contact us and we'll add it to our site.
We are also developing a banner advertisement program. Check our Site News for updates. Can I sell items for a fixed price (Buy it Now)? Yes! You can choose our Buy It Now! option which will allow you to offer your items to buyers at a fixed price. Depending on whether you want to allow bidding on your item, you can either:
- Select Buy It Now Item when choosing Listing Type -- no bidding will be allowed on your item
- Select FULL LISTING and add a Buy It Now price -- allows buyers compete in an auction or Buy It Now! the item right away
Regardless of how you set up the listing, it will appear whenever buyers search or browse on PCS Auctions. The But It Now! icon next to the item will let buyers know that they can buy it right away. Can I allow buyers to “Make An Offer” for my items? Yes! You can choose our Make Offer! option which allows you to accept offers between a range of prices that you determine. Our Make Offer! icon will appear on your listings indicating that you accept best offers from buyers.
You can negotiate the price with the seller, giving you the opportunity to buy the item at a lower price than the Buy It Now! price. As a seller, you can accept, decline, or counteroffer the buyer’s offer.
As a buyer, you should use the Make Offer! feature only when you’re serious about purchasing the item. If your offer is accepted by the seller, you’re obligated to pay for the item. How do I accept an offer for an item?
- Log into your PCS Auctions account
- Go to the Member's Area
- Click on "Items with Bids/Offers" link under the Selling menu
- All items that have received a Bid or Offer will appear
- Click on the "View offers made for this auction" link
- Click on the "Accept Offer" link to accept the offer
- A pop-up screen will appear asing you if you are sure that you want to accept the offer
- Click "Yes"
- An email is automatically sent to the buyer notifying them of the accepted offer
- Arrange payment with the buyer using the Message Board and/or PayPal
What items are restricted from being sold on your website? Before you list your item, you need to find out if your item is allowed on PCS Auctions and if the type of item is subject to certain restrictions to avoid potential issues with your listing. As a seller, you are ultimately responsible for making sure that selling an item is legal in the eyes of the law.
Violations of these policies may result in a range of actions, including; listing cancellation, limits on account privileges, account suspension, forfeit of fees on cancelled listings, notification of illegal activity to local authorities.
- Non-Item Postings (disputes, complaints, opinions will be removed)
- Adult and Sex-Related Items, Materials or Meetings. This is a FAMILY website!
- Alcohol (including Wine)
- Animals (from breeders, stud services)
- Cell Phone Service Contracts
- Charity or Fundraising Listings
- Cosmetics (used)
- Counterfeit Goods (including purses and watches)
- Credit Cards
- Drugs and Drug Paraphernalia
- Embargoed Goods
- Firearms and Weapons (including replicas, stun guns and pepper spray)
- Food
- Gift Cards
- Government and Transit Documents, IDs and Licenses
- Hazardous, Restricted and Perishable Items (batteries, firecrackers, freon)
- Human Parts and Remains
- Items Encouraging Illegal Activities
- Lock-picking Devices
- Lottery Tickets
- Mailing Lists and Personal Information
- Manufacturer's Coupons
- Medical Devices
- Money (Legal Tender, Counterfeit Currency)
- Multi-Level Marketing, Pyramid and Matrix Programs
- Offensive Material (including Nazi memorabilia)
- Pesticides
- Postage Meters
- Prescription Drugs
- Recalled Items
- Slot Machines
- Stamps (non-collectable)
- Stocks and Other Securities
- Stolen Property
- Surveillance Equipment
- Teacher's Edition Books
- Tobacco
- Transit and Shipping Related Items (operations manuals)
- WIC (Women, Infants and Children Program
How do I get paid for the items I am selling?
There are various ways to get paid from your buyers. Our website is PayPal enabled which allows sellers to send their payment directly to your PayPal account. We strongly recommend using PayPal. However, we have also listed several offline alternatives...cash, check, money order, etc.
When listing an item, you will select which payment methods you accept. After the sale, you will invoice your buyer after the sale... either from your selling page in the members area or simply sending them an email. You will inform them of the total due and what forms of payment you accept.
Online and offline transactions conducted between the buyer and seller and considered private matters. PCS Auctions will not act as an intermediary. How do I add PayPal to my listings? When you register for PCS Auctions, you will be asked for your PayPal email address. If you forgot to enter your information or did not know what this was for you can still update your account.
- Go to Members Area
- Click on Manage Account under My Account in the left hand menu
- Enter your PayPal email address under Direct Payment Settings
How do I send an invoice for a sold item? You can easily send your buyers an invoice using our website.
- Go to Members Area
- Click "Sold Items"
- Click "Send Product(s) Invoice" link for the particular item
- Click "Proceed" button
An automated email will be sent to the buyer with your invoice information. Can I get a refund for my listing fees if a buyer does not pay for the item?
We're sorry but we do not offer listing fee refunds when a buyer does not pay a seller as we have no way of verifying that the transaction did or did not take place. If you are dissatisfied with a buyer then we suggest you use our Feedback system. Please remember to just stick with the facts. Abusive or threatening language will not be tolerated.
How do I relist an item which was sold but the buyer did not pay?
You can easily create a new listing for this item by following these steps:
- Click on "Sold Items" in the left-hand menu
- Click on the item link and the original listing will appear
- Click on the "Sell Similar" link
This will take you to the Sell Your Item process and have all of the information from the original listing filled in.
We're sorry but we do not offer listing fee refunds when a buyer does not pay a seller as we have no way of verifying that the transaction did or did not take place. If you are dissatisfied with a buyer then we suggest you use our Feedback system. Please remember to just stick with the facts. Abusive or threatening language will not be tolerated.
How do I open a Store?
Setting up your own store is quick and easy...
Step 1 - Name your Store
Step 2 - Purchase your Store Subscription
- Go to the Members Area
- Click "Subscription Setup" under the My Store menu
- The "My Store - Main Menu" screen will appear
- Your "Store Status" should appear "Disabled" in red font
- Click "Enable Store"
- Select the Store Subscription you desire
- Click the "Proceed" button
- A Pop-Up Box will appear asking if you wish to proceed with these changes
- Click "Ok"
- Click on the "PayPal - Click Here to Proceed" link and pay for your Store Subscription
- Your store will be activated once PayPal payment is received. Now all you have to do is start selling!
I just opened a Store. Why are my previously listed items not appearing in my store? Sorry, items that were listed before you opened a Store will not automatically be transferred into your own store. You will have to manually move each item into your store.
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Go to Members Area
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Click the "edit auction" link next to the item you want to add to your store
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Your item listing will appear
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Click on the "Previous Step" button at the bottom of the page
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The "Choose Where To List The Item" menu will appear
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Select "Both" then Click "Next Step"
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Continue clicking through all steps until your item has been relisted
Congratulations! Your item will now appear on the listing pages and in your Store. What are Meta Tags and do I need them for my store?
Meta Tags are HTML codes that are inserted into the header on a web page, after the title tag. Meta Tags main purpose is providing meta document data to search engines. This is how search engines, such as Google, find and list websites. For example, if I type "PCS Auctions" into Google their search engine will look for all Meta Tags with the words "PCS" and "Auctions" and bring up the best results. You do not need to include Meta Tags in your Store Description unless you are a very serious seller and want to attract attention to your items not only from the military but also from world wide web users. You can use Meta Tag generator websites such as AddMe.com to create Meta Tags for your store. Why aren't my images showing in my listing? When you are creating your listing, you will browse to find your image. After you select your image you must click the "Upload Selected." The page will then refresh with a thumbnail of your image showing in this section. All your other information you entered on this page will still remain filled in. If you do not see a thumbnail of your image in this section, your image was not uploaded correctly. Images must 100 KB in size or less to load. How do I resize my images below 100 KB? Image files can be quite large and slow down our server so we’ve limited the size of images to 100 KB. Generally, photos taken by digital cameras are very large in size and will need to be reduced in order to be uploaded to our website. You can check the size of your image by right-clicking on the file in Windows Explorer and viewing the “Properties” details.
You will receive an error message if your image size is larger than 100 KB when you try to upload it to our website. You will need to reduce the image size to 100 KB or less. There are many free programs available for download on the Internet. We recommend paint.NET which is FREE and endoresed by MircoSoft. It's basically MS Paint on steroids. The best thing about it is that it uses MS tool bars, so it's very intuitive to use and easy to learn. If you don't have time for all that or you're just selling one or two items the we recommend reducing your images online at: PicResize.com or DrPic.com How do I pay my fees?
We only accept PayPal. It's an easy and secure way to pay and you only need a bank account or credit card to use PayPal's service. Due to the fact that many people using our site are PCSing, we require fees to be paid when items are listed. We recommend our Preferred Seller's Subsciptions for those of you who sell a lot of items on PCS Auctions. Are there any fees for buyers? Absolutely not! There are no fees for buyers. The seller will indicate the price of the item and how they prefer to be paid. If you have any questions about how to pay for an item, contact the seller. Most sellers are agreeable to a wide variety of payment options. Can I retract or cancel my bid? As a general rule, you can’t retract or cancel a bid. This policy prevents individuals from running up the price of an item and then backing out of the sale. When you place a bid you agree to pay for the item if you’re the winning bidder so before bidding, be sure to carefully review the listing. How do I make an offer for an item? Some of our sellers will accept offers for the item they are selling. You will see our "Make Offer" icon on these lisitings. To make an offer on an item, follow these steps:
- Open the listing
- Click on the "Make Offer" Link
- Input your offer in the Make Offer Screen
- A "successfully posted" message will appear if your offer is within the seller's price range
- An "error message" message will appear if your offer is not within the seller's price range
- Seller will receive an email notifying them of your offer
- If the seller accepts your offer, you will receive email notification
- The item will appear in your "Won Items" in the Members Area
- Arrange payment with the seller using the Message Board and/or PayPal
What is a "Dutch" auction? A "Dutch" auction means that the seller has more items of the same product for sale. The bidder can enter a maximum bid he is willing to pay for an item, and the number of items he wants to purchase. The highest bidder(s) will receive the number of items they have bid on, and the remaining bidders will receive the number of items still available. Buyers are able to bid more than once for the same item. What do I do if I have paid for an item and not yet received it? If you have paid for an item on PCS Auctions and have not yet received it after a reasonable amount of time has passed, please first contact the seller. You can contact the through the Message Board or email. Unlike email, messages on our website cannot be filtered as spam and will be received by the seller when they login to their PCS Auctions account.
We recommend our members use PayPay because they have a very good Resolution Center when the buyer and seller have a dispute. You can file a Buyer's Complaint on PayPal's website to receive a refund. You have 45 days from the date of payment to do so.
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Login to your PayPal account
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Click on "Resolution Center" in the "My Account" section
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Click on the "Dispute a Transaction" button
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Select "Item Dispute" and select continue
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Provide the PayPal Transaction ID of the payment you made to the seller
Additionally, you may want to leave appropriate feedback for the seller, based on the way they handle the situation and respond to your inquiry.
PCS Auctions does not have a Resolution Center as we regard all sales on our website as private transactions between the buyer and seller. However, if we receive repeated abuse reports for a particular seller or buyer, we will take action.
Why does an item I purchased show-up as "Unpaid" under the Purchase Date/Status? If you purchased an item and paid the seller but it shows up as "Unpaid" in your "Won Items" menu then the seller has not updated his account. Contact the seller and ask him/her to update your item's status under the "Sold Items" menu. If you tried to contact the seller but received no response, then please contact us and we will try to resolve the problem for you. How do I leave feedback? To leave feedback you will need to first Login to your account
- Go to Members Area
- Click the Leave Comments link under My Reputation on the left hand menu
- Select the sold item to leave feedback for
- Click on Proceed
- Leave a rating (1-5 Stars) and your comments
NOTE: Leaving feedback with inappropriate language or comments will result in your account being suspended. PCS Auctions reserves the right to determine what language and comments are inappropriate. What do the colored stars mean next to my user name?
The colored stars next to your user name signify the level of feedbacks received. As various levels are achieved, the color of the star will change automatically.
Can retail merchants sell on your website? Yes! We encourage military families, aspiring entrepreneurs and established business owners to sell on PCS Auctions. The larger our online community the better and who knows...you may be selling something that one of our user's desperately needs. Where is my Preferred Seller's Subscription information located? You can check the status of your Preferred Seller's Subscription in the Members Area.
- Go to Members Area
- Click on Personal Information under My Account in the left hand menu
- Your Preferred Seller's Subscription and expiration date will appear at the top of the page
If your plan has not been activated within 24 hours, please contact us. How do I cancel my Preferred Seller's Subscription? You can cancel a subscription up until the day of the next scheduled payment. Remember, this cancels all future scheduled payments for that subscription.
Here's how to do it:
1. Log in to your PayPal account.
2. Click History under My Account at the top of the page.
3. Choose Subscriptions from the Show drop-down menu.
4. Check the From box and change the date back to the year the subscription was created.
5. Click Search, and then click Details.
6. Click Cancel Subscription.
7. Click Cancel Subscription again.
I signed up for an account but never received a confirmation email.
Emails are automatically sent from our system within 60 seconds of registration. Not receiving a confirmation email is usually due to spam filtering, either by your ISP or settings on your computer.
You may want to check your spam or bulk mail folders, to see if your activation email was routed there. You will also want to make sure admin@pcsauctions.com is in your allowed senders list.
If you continue to have problems receiving the activation email, you may need to create a new account and use a different email address. Yahoo and Gmail email addresses work very well with our system. Why am I not receiving email notifications?
Not receiving emails from PCS Auctions is usually due to spam filtering, either by your ISP or settings on your computer. Check your spam, junk or bulk mail folders to see if your emails was routed there. You will also want to make sure admin@pcsauctions.com is in your allowed senders list. If you continue to have problems receiving the emails you may need to create a new account and use a different email address. Yahoo and Gmail email addresses work very well with our system, Hotmail does not. Where can I submit an idea for your website? We are always looking for good ideas to make our website better. You can submit your ideas using the Contact Us page. You idea doesn't have to be Internet related...Maybe you have a great idea for spreading the word about PCS Auctions? We're interested in hearing from you!
If we implement your idea, we'll give you 1 Month of FREE features (Bronze Preferred Seller's Subscription).
How do I change my password?
If you have forgotten your password and requested a new password, we recommend that you change this once you sign in.
You can change your password in the Members Area
- Click on Personal Information under My Account in the left hand menu
- Enter your new password in the space provided
- Click Update
NOTE: When choosing a new password be sure to choose something that is easy for you to remember, but hard for others to guess. Do not use any of your contact information or your username for a new password. Why is my new password not working?
You have requested a new password via the "forgot password" form on the LOG IN page AND this password is not working...
There are usually two reasons for this:
1) You are using the copy/paste feature on your PC to transfer password data. This does not always work, so you will need to hand enter the password exactly as it appears in the email you received.
2) Refreshing/reloading the password request page after submitting, or sending multiple requests for a new password. Only submit a new password request once, then wait for the email. The email is sent immediately by us, but sometimes mail providers have a delay for spam filtering purposes, or other reasons.
If you are using msn.com or hotmail.com email address this email may automatically go to your Junk Mail box due to their spam filtering technology.
NOTE: We do not recommend using msn.com or hotmail.com email addresses for use on our site, as you will most likely not receive emails from our system or they will be lost in your Junk Mail folder. I forgot my password, how can I sign in?
On the LOG IN page is a "Lost Password" link. Click that link to be directed to a form to request a new password. Fill in your email address and username to have a new password emailed to you.
PCS Auctions staff does not have access to your password for security reasons. Requests via email for this information will be answered with the details listed above for requesting a new password. I tried to login but it says my account is not valid.
When trying to login and you receive a username not valid error means one of two things:
1) You have mistyped your username. Try logging in again, and be sure you spell your username exactly as you used to register.
2) We have deleted your account for failure to provide complete and/or accurate contact information. We screen all new registrations. If we find a registration with missing or invalid contact info, we automatically delete the account.
It is the user’s responsibility to enter complete and accurate information when registering. The majority of registrations that we automatically delete are due to users not entering their complete name. First name only is not valid contact info. The second major factor that results in account deletion is entering an invalid phone number. A valid phone number where you can be reached is required for all members. How do I report abuse? If you come across listings on PCS Auctions that violate of our Terms and Conditions then please let us know. All of our listings have a "Report this Auction" link on the top of the page. Click on this link and send us your concerns. Please don't abuse this ability. Malicious activity on our website will not be tolerated either. Why is my account suspended? Accounts are suspended for various reasons. If your account is suspended, you should have received an email detailing the reason(s).
Some of the main reasons for account suspensions are listed below:
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Contact info not valid
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Buyer complaint that seller has neglected to respond to PCS Auctions admin email. We usually give the seller 3-7 days to reply to our requests for information.
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Bidding on items without paying. We usually do not suspend for only one of these types of infractions, but we reserve the right to take action we deem necessary after conducting our investigations.
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Repeated violations of our listing policies. (spam listings, illegal items, links in auctions, etc,.)
NOTE: Members who are suspended are prohibited from registering new accounts, bidding or selling on PCS Auctions using any other existing accounts. PCS Auctions reserves the right to suspend existing accounts as well as new accounts opened by anyone in the same household of a suspended user or by any other associates of a suspended user. I have not received a reply to my email to PCS Auctions.
Please be patient...it's just me and my wife and we both work full time. We don't have hundreds of employees but we're flattered that you think our website looks that professional :-)
Seriously, sometimes we get backed up with emails, and it may take 2-3 days for you to receive a response. We ask that you look through the FAQ page as you might find the answer to your question there. How do I close my account? To close your account you would just need to turn all your email preferences to the off position, and end any active auctions you may have running. You would then not receive any correspondence from our site in the future, unless you turn any of your email preferences back on. If you have been the buyer or seller in any recent transactions, you may receive correspondence from the other member involved. We do not purge accounts from our database, for internal security reasons. Requests for such a purge will not be completed, unless a court order is issued. |
