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B
Bid:
An offer of price for an item up for sale.
Biding:
The act of placing a bid on an auction item.
Bid
Retraction: The legitimate retraction or cancellation of a
bid on an item by a bidder during an auction. A
confirmed bid placed on an The Free Auction
listing cannot be retracted except under exceptional
circumstances.
Bid
History:: A historical list of all the bids made on a
particular auction during or after the auction.
Bid
Increment: This is the amount by which you must increase
your bid over the current high bid. Sellers set the bid
increment when they create the auction.
Big
Ticket Items:: Items with bids of $5000 or more.
Bulk
Loading: Listing a group of different items in separate
lots all at once using a bulk loading tool.
Bid
Shilling: Fraudulent bidding by an associate of the seller
in order to inflate the price of an item. Also known as
bid rigging or collusion.
Bid
Shielding: Posting extremely high bids to protect the
lower bid of an earlier bidder, usually in association
with the bidder who placed the shielding bid. Because
The Free Auction bidders cannot automatically
retract their maximum bids, OUR auctions are not subject to
this kind of auction fraud.
Bid
Siphoning: The practice of sellers contacting bidders and
offering to sell them the same item they are currently
bidding on, thus drawing bidders away from the
legitimate seller's auction. Because bidder contact
information is not released until the end of a
successful Auction Brief auction, this practice is rare
on The Free Auction.
Bulletin
Board: A place on The Free Auction where you can
post messages, ask questions, and help others.
Buying
Up Lots: The practice of buying all quantities of an
item during a Dutch auction. This is typically done for
resale purposes.
C
Category Listings: List of auctions broken
down by category such as Antiques, Books, Computers,
etc. Caveat Emptor: The Latin phrase meaning "let the
buyer beware."
Change
Registration/Password: This is used to change parts of
your user profile, such as email address, mailing
address and password.
Charity
Auction: An auction where the seller's proceeds from
winning bids are donated in whole or part to a
charitable organization. The type of charity is usually
mentioned on the auction's listing page.
Chat:
A familiar on-line conversation among The Free Auction
members.
Closed
Auctions: A place where you can view a list of auctions
already ended. You can get some info from these
auctions, like find out what a certain item sold for,
how many bids it had, etc.
Closing
Soon Icon: A Closing Soon icon  indicates an item which closing within the
next 24 hours. Closing Soon listings can be found
grouped together as a link from the bottom of most pages, and
also on the top of category specific pages.
Commission:
Please see "Final Value Fee".
Contact
Information:The Free Auction users provide contact
information when they register including name and address. All
registered users must have valid and current contact
information on file. Please update your contact
information or email address as soon as it has changes.
Control
Center: A place where you can login and view all your
auction activity.
Cookie:
Cookies are small files that websites store on your hard
drive to help their servers keep track of, and manage,
your return sessions. Cookies are designed to read only
the information in the cookie files, not other files on
your hard drive. The Free Auction Does not use
cookies.
Customer
Support:The Free Auction offers several kinds of
support or help for members. There are various kinds of
information and feedback available online through our
auction. Although there are forms that allow you to send
us your question, you can save time by looking at the online
resources. You can familiarize yourself with these by
browsing the Help pages. There are also three special
areas for the topics about which we receive many questions.
These boards are continuously monitored by our staff,
and you can get quick answers by reading other people's
questions and the answers, or by posting your own
question. They are: Message Board, Live Chat, and the Bulletin
Board.
D
Deadbeat Bidder: A bidder who does not pay for the
item won.
Deadbeat
Seller: A seller who either refuses to complete a sale
or receives payment for an item and does not ship it.
Dutch
Auction: An auction format which accommodates a seller
with multiple identical items for sale. The seller
specifies the minimum price (the starting bid) and how
many items are available. Bidders specify the number of
items they want and how much they bid for each one. The final
price is determined by the lowest bid among all the
winning bidders. The highest bidders are always
guaranteed an item, but at the lowest bid price.
E
Escrow: Money held in trust by a third party
until the seller makes delivery of merchandise to the
buyer. i-escrow.com and
escrow.com are examples
of on-line escrow services.
F
Featured Auctions: Auction listings placed
prominently on the home page and category pages for
which listers pay a premium price.
Feedback:
One member's public comments about another member in
regard to their auction dealings. Feedback comments
posted on The Free Auction cannot be removed or changed
once submitted.
Feedback
Padding: One member posting fraudulent positive
feedback about another member or leaving feedback for
oneself. Feedback padding is a violation of The Free
Auction's Feedback policy.
Feedback
Rating: Both sellers and buyers are encouraged to rate
the people with whom they conduct transactions as to
value, service, courtesy, and general satisfaction.
These ratings cannot be removed or changed, once
submitted, and they're easily accessible to all users. Your
feedback can positively or negatively influence sales
success. If your buyers give you a high rating,
potential future buyers are more apt to give you their
business as well.
Final
Value Fee: The commission charged to the seller by some
auction sites after his or her item sells. The Free
Auction does not charge a Final Value Fee.
Fixed
Price Sale: Fixed Price Sale listings have a fixed price
set by the seller and buyers simply choose to buy the
item at that price.
Flaming:
Flaming in the on-line realm is the act of sending
verbally abusive or offensive message to others. The
Free Auction expects its members to conduct
themselves reasonably and respectfully and to refrain
from this practice when having difficulty with another
member.
G
Gallery: Our is a good way of browsing items.
The Gallery presents miniature pictures, called
thumbnails, for all of the items sellers have supplied
pictures for in JPG format. The Gallery displays the
same information as the regular listing pages.
Gift
Icon: A small icon, which some auction sites have, that
shows on your listing to make it stand out and indicate
that your item would make a great gift.
Grading:
The process for determining the physical condition of an
item. Different items have different grading systems.
H
High bidder: The participant who bids the
greatest amount.
Hit:
A term used to describe the occurrence of a page being
viewed. The number of hits on a listing page indicates
that the listing has been seen by that number of
viewers. The number of hits are a reasonable indication
of interest in a listing.
Home
Page: The introductory page of a website. The home page
typically contains hyperlinks to the various components
of the site.
Hot
Listing Icon: A Hot Listing icon 
indicates an item which has generated a higher than
normal level of bidding interest. Hot listings can be
found grouped together as a link from the bottom of most
pages, and also on the top of category specific pages.
HTML:
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language and is the
publishing language of the World Wide Web. HTML is easy
to learn and you can insert it into any text description
to make your listings and webpages stand out! The
Free Auction provides some basic information and
helpful links to HTML education sites to help you get
started.
Hyperlinks:
Any icon, graphic or text in an electronic document that
is connected to a specific location within the same or to a
different document or resource. "Links" are the feature
that create the Web for countless computers and
networks.
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