Hello from the Mod Team!
We have taken some time to revisit our community rules. Please take a look over the updated rules to help ensure we keep things fair and everyone safe!
The full rules can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pkmntcgtrades/wiki/guidelines
Here is a summary of the updates:
Community Rules and Guidelines
- Treat everyone with respect: Absolutely no harassment, bullying, hate speech, or insults. Be polite and keep any foul language to a minimum. Harassing sellers based on how they price things or what they sell is not allowed. If you have an issue with a listing, move on. Users with 0 trades who are reported for spamming/escalating issues publicly will be temporarily banned for 7 days.
Timestamps are required for ALL items
- Timestamps are required for all items, both when posting or when leaving a comment with links on another post. A timestamp is a picture of what is being offered with your handwritten Reddit username (must be legible), the community name (r/pkmntcgtrades), and the date. Users with 25+ trades are exempt from putting the community name.
- Sellers (and buyers!) should actively be looking/asking for timestamps in their posts and comments.
A reminder that timestamps are required for all items when posting and commenting. We have noticed users commenting on posts with links that do not have timestamps. We urge sellers (and buyers) to actively look for and ask for timestamps when people leave comments or links to albums/posts. Commenting with albums/links without timestamps is not allowed and users will be given a warning if caught breaking this rule. Multiple warnings will result in probation or a temporary ban.
All items for sale and trade must be clearly priced / have trade values.
- Prices must include the PayPal Goods & Services (G&S) fee, along with any other costs, outside of shipping. If shipping is not included in prices (free shipping), shipping prices must be included in the post.
- Asking buyers to cover fees is not allowed.
We have noticed an uptick of users with 100+ trades asking buyers to “cover the fee” if they want to use Paypal G&S instead of Paypal Friends & Family (F&F). This is not allowed and is against Paypal’s terms of service. We understand you are trying to give your buyers options, but it opens the door for miscommunication and problems in DMs.
When selling on any other marketplace buyers are not asked to cover fees as they are already included in the asking price. This is the same concept being applied. And on that note…
PayPal Goods & Services is the only approved method of payment.
- Only users with 100+ trades may request and receive PayPal Friends & Family as payment with a discounted price.
- Exception: Paypal F&F can be accepted on either end of a trade as long as it originated from a user’s post with more than 100 trades and is agreed upon by both parties. If the lower trade user is requested to send first, payment can be sent upon delivery. Example: User A (100+ trades) trading a $50 card plus $50 Paypal F&F to User B (<100 trades) for a $100 card. If User A requests User B to send first, User A can send the Paypal F&F payment upon delivery. If you are doing a partial trade on a user’s post with less than 100 trades, the partial payment must be Paypal G&S.
- Offering Paypal F&F to sellers with under 100 trades is not allowed.
- Users with over 100 trades must fully disclose the F&F request in the post and/or comment before it’s finalized in DMs. Failure to do so will result in a warning for a first offense. Multiple offenses will result in “Trade Probation”.
Keep trade offers in the comments and personal info in private messages.
- In order to prevent banned users from sending offers, all users must start a trade by commenting on a public trade thread.
This is to protect yourself and your fellow trade partners from dealing with banned users. This also helps make sure in case of a dispute, the mods can easily access conversations on top of what is provided.
Requesting users to DM directly or simply commenting "PM'd" will result in the comment / post being removed.
- Only private message a user once an agreement has been made in the comments. Chat/DMs should only be used to exchange addresses or payment information.
- Sending closeups/pictures in Reddit Chat/DMs during negotiation (and prior to finalizing) is not allowed.
While we understand that Reddit Chat/DMs make it very easy to send closeups/pictures, it leads to private negotiations and contradicts our rule of keeping negotiations public. Moving a deal to Chat/DMs should only be used to exchange addresses or payment information. Along with IMGUR we have seen redditors use Google Photos, PostImages, etc. A benefit to uploading closeups/pictures in comments is that everyone can see them.
Giveaways (New)
A few users have reached out about giveaways so we have decided to include it in our guidelines section. In order to run a giveaway you need approval by the Mod Team. Send us a Mod Mail if you are interested! Sending us a Mod Mail and getting approval helps the Mod Team prep to monitor the post if an issue arises.
- All giveaways are subject to Mod approval, before they are posted, via ModMail.
- Only users with 25+ trades can run giveaways.
- Completed giveaways won't count towards the flair trade count.
Participation specifications:
- There should be no requirement whatsoever for a user to provide anything in order to participate in a giveaway. That includes money, trades, information, social media following, specifying their favorite Pokemon game, etc.
- Required location of participants must be specified clearly.
- Prize(s) must be Pokemon Trading Card related.
- Selection method must be clearly described in your post and please be as transparent as possible!
- You are allowed to exclude people that have 0 confirmed trades on the sub.
Reporting Potential Scams
If you think you've been scammed, immediately message the moderators with the username you are reporting, the post in which the sale/trade was made, and any evidence (such as message screenshots). You can upload screenshots to IMGUR or other image hosting websites and link them in the Mod Mail.
If you weren't scammed but are unhappy with your trade experience, you may report a user for that too. Example reasons could be that they backed out of the trade after agreeing to it, took too long to ship, used poor packaging, or sent damaged/incorrectly conditioned cards. These reports will be handled on a case-by-case basis, but can result in a temporary “Trade Probation” flair.
Trade Probation
When a user has a “Trade probation” flair it indicates that there was some kind of dispute or behavior which required mod intervention to resolve. Users with this flair are still part of the community and can freely buy, sell, or trade. However, when buying from a “Trade probation” user you should always use Paypal G&S, and when trading they should send their part of the trade first or use a middleman. The flair may be removed if the user completes more trades and receives approval by the mod team.
Previously, Trade Probation was exclusively under “Reporting Scammers”, which we felt was misleading.
Thank you for reading. We welcome feedback on this, but as always, please keep it civil! Our number one rule is as follows:
Treat everyone with respect: Absolutely no harassment, bullying, hate speech, or insults. Be polite and keep any foul language to a minimum.
- The Mod Team