| Click here to advertise on CoinBidders.Com! |
Site Policies
General
Prices are subject to change without notice, and since some items are hard to find and market conditions can change rapidly, availability of a specific item for the listed prices is not guaranteed! If we don't have an item in stock, we will make every effort to obtain it for you at the price shown. If we are unable to obtain it for the listed price within a reasonable amount of time, we will either give you a full refund or you may choose to pay any additional cost necessary to purchase it if we find that we have to pay more to acquire it for you. Please note also that depending on the nature of your order, your items might be shipped from multiple sources and arrive at different times.
|
|
|
Members
Membership is required before coins can be purchased through CoinBidders.com, and basic ("Bronze Club") membership is free. Other levels of membership are available for an annual membership fee, and additional benefits are offered at each level. Visit the appropriate link for an explanation of the benefits available at the various membership levels and the associated annual fees. See important note regarding Sales Tax below. |
|
Dealers
All CoinBidders.com network dealers are required to be authorized PCGS and/or NGC dealers. Three levels of membership are available to dealers ("Silver Club", "Gold Club" and "Platinum Club"), each offering different benefits. Visit the appropriate link for an explanation of the benefits available at each level and the associated annual fees. For a limited time, all new dealers will be granted a free six month Platinum Club membership for only a $10.00 account setup fee. Once that free membership expires after six months, you may renew your membership at any of the three levels available to our network dealers, for the applicable annual membership fee. For details about dealer membership levels and their annual fees / benefits, click the appropriate link from the Dealer Registration page. Pricing your coins: We ask that you price your coins competitively, to encourage active buying and selling through CoinBidders.com. You are free to price your coins any way you want to, but we will not allow any indication of price to be visible to the customer. For example, the comments field on the "Add Inventory" page is useful to provide a better description of the coin, such as "Great toning!", or "Hairlines to the left of the eagle", and we allow dealers to say things like "Please make an offer ~ you might be surprised!", but we will not allow you to say something like "Available at Greysheet ASK". Comments are meant to describe the coin only ~ not the price. Indicating that a coin is available for a good price is fine, as long as there is no indication as to what that price might be. Be sure to set your minimum selling price high enough to cover the credit card fees associated with your current level of membership, as your sale proceeds may* be reduced by the appropriate credit card fees. * Depending on the customer's offer price. See "Fee Structure" elsewhere on this page. Dealer Payments: We plan to automate our payments to dealers in the future, but in the meantime we will cut checks ten (10) calendar days after a sale is made, which gives us time to receive the funds from the purchasers' credit card companies. Due to the credit card companies' delays in transferring the funds to us, we are unable to cut checks any sooner than ten calendar days from the sale date. Checks will be mailed to the address shown on the "My Account" page. See important note regarding Sales Tax below. |
|
Shipping Charges, Methods and Timing
All CoinBidders.com registered dealers agree to ship coins within three business days of the sale date, and to ship the coins via registered U.S. mail. It is the policy of CoinBidders.com to always add shipping charges to all transactions; however, if your selling dealer is local to you or if you can pick up the coin from the selling dealer in person (such as at an upcoming coin show), then it is your responsibility to notify the selling dealer immediately that you wish to avoid shipping charges by picking up your coin in person. You must do this immediately after the sale is completed, before the dealer ships your coin, as failure to do so will result in the coin being shipped to you. As long as you notify the dealer in advance that you will be picking the coin up in person, the dealer agrees to reimburse to you (at the time the coin is delivered to you) the shipping charges that were charged to your card when the sale was made through CoinBidders.com. For sales where you will pick up your coin from the selling dealer in person, the timing of delivery is strictly between you and the selling dealer - whatever timeframe you mutually agree on for delivery of your coin. Under no circumstances will CoinBidders.com be held liable for any loss or damages resulting from such arrangements. |
| Membership Upgrades
Dealers and customer/members may upgrade their memberships at any time by clicking on the appropriate link from the Dealer Index or Member Index page. This "Upgrade Membership" page will accept your credit card payment for the upgrade. However, we are unable to offer any credits or refunds for partial memberships canceled due to upgrades. For example, if you had a paid Silver Club membership that was valid from 11/01/03 thru 10/31/04 but you upgraded to a Gold Club membership on 8/12/04, your new Gold Club membership would be valid from 8/12/04 thru 8/11/05 ~ you would forfeit your paid time as a Silver Club member between 8/13/04 and 10/31/04 and we would be unable to issue any refunds or credits for that forfeited time. |
|
Returns
Misrepresented Coins: CoinBidders.com will not be held responsible for any erroneous representations made by any dealers on this site - the dealers are solely responsible for accurately representing their coins. Our dealers agree to immediately correct any known errors or misrepresentations in their inventory lists, but accidents sometimes happen and things can be missed or overlooked. If a misrepresented coin is sold prior to being corrected, the dealer will honor the return policy (see next paragraph) without charging the normal restocking fee. For such misrepresented coins, you will also be reimbursed by the dealer for any and all shipping costs paid by you (including insurance and related costs), for both the initial delivery of your coin and it's return (receipts will be required). The aforementioned will be the full extent of your rights should you purchase a misrepresented coin, and even if a coin was misrepresented, it is your responsibility to return the coin to the selling dealer (NOT to CoinBidders.com) within the required time period as specified in the return policy below. Misrepresented coins not returned within the required time period will be treated the same as properly represented coins, with respect to the forfeiture of all rights once the required time period for returns has elapsed. Normal Returns: All dealers agree to honor a ten calendar day, no questions asked return policy subject to a 6% (six percent) per coin restocking fee. Shipping, insurance and other related charges involved in returning the coin to the selling dealer will be the sole responsibility of the customer returning the coin, and will be completely separate from the restocking fee. The restocking fee shall be based ONLY on the actual sale price of the coin (the purchaser's accepted offer price), not the total price paid by the purchaser, which would have included shipping costs, etc. We recommend that you retain for your records all related paperwork for any coins returned to a network dealer. |
|
Security
CoinBidders.com uses a shared digital certificate to encrypt data using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, the industry-standard method for protecting internet communications developed by Netscape Communications Corporation. |
|
Privacy Your privacy is very important to us, so we do not retain your credit card information (card numbers and expiration dates) anywhere on our site. Card information is captured only for the purpose of authorizing transactions, and the only card-related piece of information we retain for our records is the approval code returned by the card processing companies. Unless you direct us otherwise, your contact information may be used for internal promotional and/or marketing purposes, and we reserve the right to provide your contact information to interested third parties. When you register for a new account you will have the opportunity to "opt out" of any marketing or promotional activities, and once your account is set up, you can change your "opt out" status at any time by clicking the "My Account" link from the Member Index or Dealer Index page and setting the indicator accordingly. |
|
System Processing Errors In the event of a system processing error, where the system charges a customer's card for an incorrect amount, calculates an incorrect amount for the CoinBidders.com or dealer portion of the sale proceeds, or any other type of processing error, we will make every reasonable effort to correct the error as quickly as possible. The only remedy a customer member or a dealer member shall have in such a case is the prompt attention of CoinBidders.com, and we will move expeditiously to remit to you any funds that may have been charged to you in error, or to recoup any shortages that we may have failed to charge for. Your sole recourse in the event of such a system error is to have the problem corrected by CoinBidders.com as quickly as possible. It is your responsibility to notify us immediately if you believe a processing error has occurred. |
|
Disputes & Arbitration In the event of a dispute, arbitration will be conducted by the American Arbitration Association. The venue for any such arbitration will be Nashville, Tennessee. |
|
Shipping to Continental United States only At this time, we are not able to facilitate shipments outside of the continental United States. We will work to allow that capability as soon as possible, and this restriction will be removed from the "Site Policies" page when the capability to ship coins to locations outside of the continental United States is in place. |
|
Sales Tax WWW.CoinBidders.com offers no advice and makes no representation whatsoever regarding the necessity or non-necessity of charging sales tax on coins sold by our member dealers, and we do not collect or add sales tax when computing total charges. It is the responsibility of the selling dealer to ensure that his or her minimum selling price is sufficient to cover any resulting sales tax that might be due, and to remit any such tax to the proper authority. |
|
Fee Structure (For Dealers) Our minimum fee is $3.00, but in reality it is unlikely that we will end up taking exactly $3.00 upon completion of a sale. In order for a sale to be made, the customer only needs to make an offer that is at least $3.00 higher than the dealer’s minimum selling price, but these examples illustrate the way our programming logic actually works: Example # 1.
In this example, we use the “5 times” rule. We take the difference between the offer amount ($2,100) and the dealer’s minimum selling price ($2,000) which is $100, and subtract the $84.00 credit card fee. If the difference ($16.00) is at least five times the minimum CoinBidders.com fee of $3.00, and it is (5 times $3.00 = $15.00, and $16.00 is greater than $15.00), then we give the selling dealer 80% of that $16.00 difference (80% of $16.00 = $12.80, so we would add $12.80 to the dealer’s minimum selling price) and we would take the other 20% of $16.00 ($3.20) for our fee. Example # 2.
In this example, we would NOT use the “5 times” rule. We take the difference between the offer amount ($2,090) and the dealer’s minimum selling price ($2,000) which is $90, and subtract the $83.60 credit card fee. Since the difference ($6.40) is NOT at least five times the minimum CoinBidders.com fee of $3.00, (5 times $3.00 = $15.00, and $6.40 is NOT greater than $15.00), we check to see if the $6.40 is at least equal to our minimum fee of $3.00. Since it is, the processing ends here ~ we keep the $6.40 for our fee and the dealer receives his or her minimum selling price with NO deduction for credit card fees since the customer’s offer was high enough to cover the credit card fee plus the CoinBidders.com fee. Example # 3.
In this example, we use the “5 times” rule, but not immediately. We take the difference between the offer amount ($2,550) and the dealer’s minimum selling price ($2,500) which is $50, and subtract from that the $102.00 credit card fee. Since the difference ($ - 52.00) is NOT at least five times the minimum CoinBidders.com fee of $3.00, (5 times $3.00 = $15.00, and $ - 52.00 is NOT greater than $15.00), we check to see if the $ - 52.00 is at least equal to our minimum fee of $3.00. Since it is not, we deduct the 4% credit card fee (4% of $2,550 = $102) from the dealer’s minimum selling price, leaving the dealer with temporary net sale proceeds of $2,398. We then calculate the CoinBidders.com fee by taking the offer price ($2,550) minus the dealer proceeds ($2,398) minus the credit card fee ($102) which leaves us with a fee of $50.00. Since $50.00 is more than five times the minimum CoinBidders.com fee of $3.00 (5 times $3.00 = $15,00, and $50.00 is greater than $15.00), we’ll take 20% of that $50.00 ($10.00) for our fee and add the other 80% of the $50.00 ($40.00) to the $2,398 we calculated previously for the dealer net, resulting in a readjusted (higher) dealer net of $2,438.00. In this particular example, the dealer net of $2,438 represents a $62.00 deduction for credit card fees from the minimum selling price of $2,500 ~ or the equivalent of a 2.48% credit card fee, even though the dealer left room in his price for a 4% card fee. For now, all sales will be credit card sales. As you can see from the charts above, in two of the three examples shown, the dealer’s net sale proceeds are NOT reduced by the credit card fees at all. In one of the examples the dealer is actually paid more than their required minimum selling price, and in the case where card fees reduced the dealer net proceeds, the reduction was less than the expected and agreed-upon card fee percentage. Regardless of which way our logic processes, the absolute worst case is that your sale proceeds will equal your minimum selling price minus the percentage for credit card fees that corresponds to your membership level. We therefore recommend setting your minimum selling price to assume the worst case scenario. Future Money Order Sales? In the near future, we plan to implement logic that will facilitate money order sales so that customers can purchase coins through CoinBidders.com with no credit card fees being charged to the selling dealer. Details are still being worked out, but the tentative plan is to allow dealers to indicate whether they will accept credit card payments only, credit cards and money orders, or money orders only. For any particular coin purchase, we will use the owning dealer's acceptable payment method(s) to determine the payment option(s) to offer to the customer for the purchase of that coin. Of course, for money order purchases the customer will have to wait longer to receive his or her coin, as the money order will require a few days of travel time through the U.S. Mail system. Stay tuned! |
E-mail us!
|
|
CoinBidders.Com Comments or questions may be addressed to our webmaster@coinbidders.com. Copyright (c) 2003 CoinBidders.Com. All rights reserved. |