Most online auctions use similar lingo and format.

Step 2: What are they saying?
The following is a glossary of common terms used in most auction sites.

Start price: The starting point of the auction. Bids start from this amount.

Minimum increment: This is the minimum amount to bid up for the item. This prevents situations where one wins a car auction by bidding just a cent above the next highest bidder.

Reserve Price: Did the last bidder offer an amount under the reserve price? Then the seller also reserves the right not to sell the item to said cheapskate.

Buy price: Impatient, aren’t we? If you really must have the item, this is the amount at which the seller will tell the other buyers to fly a kite and sell immediately to you. The Buy price will never be under the reserve price.

Shipping rates: International buyers beware. There is no point in getting a notebook at a low, low price of S$200 which cost S$100 to ship to your location. Some sellers deliberately pad the shipping rates to boost their profit margin.

Maximum bid: Used by amateurs and lazy people, you put in the maximum price you are willing to pay for the item and the auction site will automatically keep bidding the minimum increment till your limit. As we shall see later, you will unlikely win the auction using this function, unless you are the only interested buyer for the item.

User rating: This is the first thing you should look at. Short of hiring a private investigator to check the history of each and every seller, the user rating is a quick way to determine the trustworthiness of a seller. Take stock of the bad experiences, as there have been cases of some sellers registering multiple user names just to boost the ratings of their primary account.

Previous lady owner: Some people ride on the misconception that the fairer sex would take better care of their possessions. This may be true of Ferragamo shoes and Louis Vuitton bags, but those who are in the know make no such assumptions when it comes to electronic goods. Some of the worst cases of mobile phone abuse come from the handbags of females, while we actually cringe at the conditions some put their notebooks through (you mean you typed your project at the beach, on the sand? The horror!).

Mint condition: PCs are not coins. Though the pervious owner may have keep his items in pristine cosmetic condition, that does not gurantee that the hardware is working in tip-top condition. Some less honest sellers will even pay a little more to get a scratched-up exterior changed for a new one, thereby voiding any warranty which may be on it. May sure the warranty seals are intact and, barring user-serviceable areas like memory and harddisk slots, the screws do not show signs of having been removed.

Ironically, some light scratches can sometimes be preferable to a perfect exterior, as the latter is physically impossible unless the item has never been removed from its original packaging.

Remember, winning an auction is not just an online equivalent of a handshake deal, but a contract to purchase the item at the stated price and condition. Make sure you ask the seller all the important questions before you show them the money.

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