How to post create an account to HP advertisement?

[Han]

(12-15-2013 04:04 PM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  Seriously, I'd immediately report such a post after contacting the 'seller' just to get an ebay number. This is spam, IMO.

And you would be completely within your right as a member on this forum. While I personally think we should avoid auction listings (despite having placed a few myself back on the old forums), there really is no way you would be able to tell an auction listing from one that is not an auction listing when the seller does not list prices. If an honest seller has a desirable item to sell, he may want to send things to PM and not make the negotations public. Someone else having a few items (let's say they were an active member of the forum, and simply want to let go of some of their collection to the highest bidder) to sell via an auction may also request a PM, only to send you an auction number in response. If both types of sellers simply provide a description of their items and request a PM to negotiate price, then end result is any interested party would necessarily use PMs to contact the seller. What they do after making contact is completely up to them, including reporting for spam.

Now, I have to really wonder if the majority of people who are genuinely interested in an item are really going to care whether or not the item was an auction item. After all, they have interest in the item -- why else would they bother making contact? It's not like you would get swindled out of money by merely PM'ing the seller. All that is lost are a few bytes and some time -- which one would normally have to deal with when searching for collectibles anyway.

The only folks who I really see reporting such a post as spam are those who are simply against auctions in principle, even if they have strong interest in an item (and there's nothing wrong with this, either). But I would wager these folks make up a much smaller group of interested buyers.