Halp: Use Agreement-Random Plaza

Use Agreement

(last updated: October 27, 2009

Basic Rules and Policies

Some Rules

Do not discuss, link to, post, request, upload, sell, etc. anything that violates United States law or the law where you live both criminal as well as anything that could bring a civil suit.

If you are listing any trademark items or things like copyrighted software, you must explain visibly either near the top or near the bottom of your listing why the item is legitimate and not counterfeit. Items that do not have this will be taken down. It can even be one sentence. Random Plaza is not asking you to give out your suppliers--that information is generally considered a trade secret.

If you are listing anything needed a license to sell them, these must abide by all laws for where you sell them from and to, and you must include full proof of your license in your listing showing you are legally licensed to sell such products.

No revealing of personal information, even if you claim it is your own (e.g. names, phone numbers, addresses). For listings, just use email addresses only and if it can be verified you put someone else's email address in the listing without permission (forums are fine), the listing will be removed. For all mentioned previously in this paragraph, directing others to another website that reveals such information is also against the rules.

Do not impersonate others. Usernames that are obvious impersonation may be blocked permanently and may be renamed if the real party wants to usurp them.

Do not give reviews/opinions/etc for other users on this website except in feedback and only for the specific party you are leaving feedback for. Even in feedback, do not out their real life identity, other usernames, or online identity. For all mentioned previously in this paragraph, directing others to another website that reveals such information is also against the rules.

If you are under the age of eighteen, you are not allowed to access this website. The same goes if you are not able to read and understand Random Plaza's Use Agreement

Using this website to advertise things outside it is unwelcome. Excessive spamming or flooding is not allowed and doing this in feedback will result in the feedback removed or redacted. Spamming also includes posting in unrelated categories, keyword spamming, putting most of your item's price in surcharges like shipping to make your item falsely look much lower priced, as well as secretly or unclearly (very openly and clearly is okay) requiring extra purchases for what you sell to work.

By the way for overcharging on shipping, it is fine to slightly overestimate your shipping to avoid selling at a loss. There are some stingy people on the internet who just want to make sellers sell items at a loss, who claim that shipping + packing materials + tape + labels + tracking costs + insurance + time + vehicle expenses to go to the post office = the price it costs to mail a postcard minus the cost of the actual postcard and minus the cost of the labels to put on the post card. Random Plaza's rules about excessive surcharges are not about some minor shipping issue, but about spamming via deceptive pricing of items.

You have the option of having your items listed on Google's product search by checking a box in your listing. Items listed on Google's product search must follow Google's long list of rules that at the time of writing can be found at these links: http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=62594&hl=en http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=61118&hl=en . People who post listings that violate Google's rules may be prevented from listing there without notice.

It is not allowed to do anything related to harming Random Plaza's website or its owning company Random Plaza Online LLC.

♦ Here is an essay on how Random Plaza will enforce rules here in relation to laws restricting freedom of speech.

Feedback Removal Policies

Feedback may be removed if:
-It contains privacy violations of anyone, even you. No giving names, phone numbers, physical addresses. No giving out online identities of the person outside the website. No telling what the other usernames of the person are. No giving out usernumbers of accounts if you somehow happen to find that information out. You can give out things like countries or states, but that is it, and cities are not allowed.
-It contains links, scripts, code, email addresses (however they are coded), urls, mock-urls like "www dot google dot com", instructions to web search something, or spam.
-It can be made obvious that the person who left it just did the transaction to be able to leave feedback.
-The feedback says nothing about the transaction and instead is about something completely else.
-The person who left it has been suspended for a very long time and their suspension won't expire for a very long time.
-It bashes the person for things unrelated to the transaction. For example, let's say Chris-chan sold you something. Now you could complain about the transaction, but you can't start talking about unrelated internet stuff like saying that he makes nude videos or bashing his appearance. Now even though eBay allows it, as seen here on his eBay profile where a member juleyyyjuleyyy left the comment on March 30, 2009, that kind of abuse is not allowed on Random Plaza. However, if someone talks about irrelevant things and praises him or at least doesn't bash him, then that doesn't meet criteria for removal by itself.

Normally, you will need request via Random Plaza's contact form before feedback is removed.

Random Plaza will try to keep your information you put on this site private. Random Plaza does sell your user information or spam your email address. Each account's two passwords are encrypted in the database and the first is encrypted in a way that is not reverse-decryptable. Buyers and sellers do see each other's email addresses, however people who make anonymous offers do not see the seller's email address until the seller contacts them. Random Plaza does guarantee privacy of your information, as hacking, law enforcement, court orders, and the like may obtain your information.

Random Plaza records a certain number of IP addresses and IP ranges (using the fourth group of digits in the IP address as the range). When you leave feedback, it checks what these IP records are at the time you or your buyer/seller leaves it and notes on the feedback if there is an IP match. It does not disclose any IP addresses, only if there is match. This check is done to highlight potential fake feedback. Those using AOL should be able to avoid using AOL's proxies by using a browser outside of the AOL software window.

Misc

Random Plaza cannot take action based on text of email headers because they can easily be forged and Random Plaza does not have access to another email server's logs to verify if they are real.

Random Plaza may delete accounts that are very old and have never been logged into after registering them, ever. Random Plaza may also delete accounts with no paid feedback that have never been logged into for many years. Random Plaza will not delete accounts that have paid for funds to be in them.

If you upload illegal images, then in addition to anything else, Random Plaza may run a script that arbitrarily removes or replaces every single image that you have uploaded.

More Rules and Policies, just less basic ones

Downtime policy

Downtime is inevitable. Random Plaza's listing fees are so small that by virtue of how small they are, this should compensate for any minor downtimes. For major downtimes, Random Plaza will go through and extend the auto-renew date of all active listings that were not free to list.

Random Plaza unfortunately will not compensate for emotional suffering caused by downtime.

When Random Plaza updates its Use Agreement

There's a date last updated on this Use Agreement and on most of the webpages of Random Plaza, the footer shows when the Use Agreement was last updated. So when Random Plaza updates its Use Agreement, you'll see the date change. Keep in mind that for the listings that users make (URL will start with http://randomplaza.com/product/), users can, against Random Plaza's wishes, use their own (X)HTML and they can interfere with the display of the date or alter it.

If Random Plaza's Use Agreement changes and you don't agree with it, then you can stop using this website within a reasonable time.

Communication

Buyer and seller will contact each other by email. Each individual is responsible if their email system does not work, is full, and/or if their email system's spam filters block non-spam email.

Fees

You shall pay to Random Plaza the service fees set forth at the URL http://randomplaza.com/help.fees.php, which is hereby incorporated into the terms of this Agreement by reference. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, you agree that any payment services outside of Random Plaza that you use for paying us money are not in Random Plaza's control and whatever they do is your and their liability. In addition, Random Plaza may charge any fees that any payment service or method charges us or causes us to pay in order to receive your money, such as money transfer fees. Any bouncings or reversals of previously paid funds that Random Plaza did not request to reverse will result in you owing us the funds and double any fees Random Plaza gets charged from bouncings or reversals of payments.

Refunds will be based on the money you paid into your Random Plaza account initially, which Random Plaza will need to check so this is a time-consuming, manual process and so there will be a small service fee, generally about five euro. Funds given as free credits such as for promotions are not transferable to real money. For all refunds, Random Plaza will deduct any costs incurred to transfer the money to you. If Random Plaza goes out of business, Random Plaza will try to refund everyone even if it takes a while, which it might. If Random Plaza gave your account merchandise credits as funds in your account unrelated to you actually paying money to Random Plaza for the funds, then those are purely merchandise credits and not redeemable for real life money.

Username and Passwords

You are solely responsible for maintaining adequate security and control of any and all usernames, passwords, secret date, or any other codes for purposes of giving you access to the Random Plaza Services. You are responsible for keeping your passwords and secret date safe from anyone finding it, and responsible for making it a hard to guess, remembering it, keeping any phishing attempts seeing it, keeping keyloggers from getting it, logging out when not in use, accessing this website through secure networks, and continuing to be able to access the email address associated with your account. It is your responsibility for all actions done on your account or through anonymous use based on codes we send you via email if you another gains access be the access regardless of how they attained access. It is also your responsibility not to fall for phishing scam that impersonate Random Plaza or its staff and then request your private information.

It us against the rules use an email address that can be accessed without a password, such as those disposable email addresses, because they make it easier to hijack your account.

Random Plaza will rely on actions and information of your account as being the rightful owner. By using this website, you agree that the security of your account is your email address is your responsibility.

If Random Plaza gets hacked, it is Random Plaza responsibility, but if the security breach of your account is from you, a computer you used, a service (not Random Plaza) you used, an internet connection you used, and that kind of thing, then it's your responsibility. If Random Plaza is hacked, then refunds will be given only as merchandise credits to use Random Plaza.

Disclaimer, limitation of liability, indemnification, waiver, and all that sort of stuff
VISITORS ENTER AT THEIR OWN RISK

This is not that Random Plaza is an intentionally unsafe site, it's just that bad things can happen anywhere, even on elevators. Please see the following video:

Or for example, this happened in a shopping mall. A man sat down on a toilet seat and some malicious shopper had put glue on the seat. Now the mall couldn't have stopped that as even if they regularly inspect the toilets, they can't inspect it every single time, without it being so impractical that it freaks people out. In addition, the man himself was careless by not being wary of germs on the public toilets by putting those toilet coverings over the seat, then some more toilet paper on it, and then squatting over it not to touch it. He put his bare behind on the public toilet seat and doing that will probably get you STDs that are worse then being glued to the seat. Well, anyway, same idea to be careful applies to this website.

Random Plaza is a website.

Users get banned by websites sometimes for a valid reason, sometimes for an invalid reason, and sometimes for no reason at all. Users may not even receive notice. Typically users don't like their bans. Yes, this could happen to you on this website. Websites need to be able to ban whoever they choose as a protection mechanism.
It's impossible for a website to permanently ban someone; read this.
Websites go down.
Websites get hacked be it the actual site or some internet backbone related to it like domain names.
Websites have technical problems.
Websites get denial of service attacks.
Websites have the misfortune of malicious people phishing its users.
User of websites do stupid or careless things that get their accounts hijacked.
Sometimes data between a website and a user is intercepted by malicious third parties.
Websites may have software bugs on them.
Websites may errors of what's written on them.
There's a lot more not mentioned. Basically, any problem that has happened or will happen to a website will eventually happen to Random Plaza. It may be the next minute or it may be a million years. Just you need to be cautious about this stuff.

In addition, it's your duty to keep track of all data that you put on Random Plaza in case it's either deleted, lost, or for some other reason that you can't access it--this is not just a waiver of liability, but also very good practice for every single website that you go to. Haven't you ever posted to a forum and your post was deleted and you wished you could get it back but couldn't? Think about it.

For product sales, Random Plaza is a marketplace on the internet where independent users buy and sell goods. One term that might apply is "internet flea market". To actually ensure a safe transaction for product sales would require a full-service escrow company that physically inspects the goods in full detail and the payment. Then after inspection, they would guarantee their inspections. For returns, they would then inspect a return to make sure the return is reasonable and not the buyer pulling a return scam. Even this is not perfect as a seller could sell a very clever forgery that could not be detected. Though anything missing this detailed escow stuff leave some room open for potential scams. Even doing a deal in person can make one vulnerable as the buyer can only inspect the merchandise so much and is not omniscient and the seller can't always know if money is counterfeit.

But an escrow like that would take too long and cost too much. Even a much more limited escrow like escrow.com that only handles the money and not the product, is impractical for most goods due to its minimum $25 escrow fee. For most product sales all over the internet, it's done in the interests of efficiency. The buyer purchases something without checking out the seller too well. Most sellers online want to stay in business, draw customers, and have a good reputation. Most sellers online also aren't in a bargaining position like the post office where they can do things where they steal mail, destroy mail, and then illegally charge the recipient of a first class one ounce mailpiece as much postage due as express mail would cost. So most of the time, sellers hold up their part. Sometimes they don't, but usually they do. The buyer then pays by credit card, not because it's a safe payment method for both parties, but because it's either the fastest method possible or one of the fastest.

Here's what it's like to get your income from credit card payments or anything similar: Can you imagine being an employee at a company where long after you've received payment from your employer, that your payment from them would suddenly get reversed a year after you've been paid? And on top of it, you get a large "chargeback fee" that is never refunded. And then after that, law enforcement won't even do anything about it? And even in the rare instance where you convince the employer's bank to undo the reversal, the huge chargeback fee never gets refunded and the employer can just keep on doing chargebacks for the same thing over and over? And that you'd have to travel miles or even across the world and spend enough money buy several new luxury cars in order to sue them, often with the additional expense of tracking them down if they used false information, and on top of it, you might not even win the suit?

And that is how internet commerce goes for product sales. Yes, it does have lots of problems. If the item is expensive, you can have the luxury of an escrow service (provided you make sure it's a properly licensed escrow service and not a fake or impostor escrow scam) that makes things more safe, but still not perfect. But for a cheap transaction that doesn't use escrow, it just has never been done. While some organizations have claimed to make it safe, it hasn't. Here's what happens instead. A good example is a study done by the Australian Payments Clearing Association, cited from a news report by Dan Warne12 June 2008, 5:01 PM:
"APCA notes that eBay provides no evidence to suggest that the relative frequency of online fraud for PayPal online transactions is any less than found in general online transactions. According to 2007 APCA statistics, card fraud in Australia is 0.0167% of transactions. APCA contrasts this with a statement made by Daniel Feiler, media spokesperson for eBay, quoted in the on-line publication 'The Sheet' on 15 April 2008 saying that the incidence of fraud through PayPal now stands at 0.30% of all transactions. APCA also notes that PayPal's buyer protection is not reducing fraud but instead is reallocating the cost of fraud from buyers to sellers."
This is all that happens. One can move the cost of fraud all to the seller or all to the buyer and often times the total fraud goes up, too.

On Random Plaza, it is then the buyer's and seller's duties to evaluate the risks. It is up to each buyer and seller on Random Plaza to take the responsibility and risk onto themselves as well as to not hold Random Plaza Online LLC., its owners, associates, etc. liable. Random Plaza is just a venue.

Please keep in mind that this site does not force anyone to go through with a transaction if they feel uncomfortable and also does not force anyone to use certain payment methods. This site does not suspend sellers or buyers if they feel unsafe and back out of a transaction. The feedback people can leave you is not scored with a ranking and even so, both sellers and buyers must manually select who they do business with on this website first.

A feedback system is part of the site

People can totally lie and say bad things about you on it and Random Plaza has no way to verify it, or if in the unlikely event it can, it's too impractical or expensive. At least Random Plaza's feedback doesn't have those god-awful rating systems where a single bad rating is more important than thousands of good ratings. Feedback is there to help people trust you when they don't know you and to increase sales. It's got problems but it's got good points so it's basically a trade-off. Selling not logged in as "anonymous" doesn't have feedback and buying not logged in as "anonymous" can't leave feedback -- which is an option that's only viable if you have little buying or selling on this website. One thing that will protect you as a seller is if you honestly mark them whether paid or unpaid--if you start marking a lot unpaid when they paid, then it'll hurt you when some nonpayer causes trouble and you marked stuff dishonestly on your feedback.

Random Plaza contains user-generated content. This may contain inaccurate and harmful information and Random Plaza cannot always know what is what and Random Plaza does not have the money to hire staff to constantly check everything. Things are dealt with when reported and there is a delay from when the report is sent to when it is read.

Important: If as a result of your use of this website, a third party is harmed (e.g. your friend/family), you agree to take on the liability of that and indemnify Random Plaza.

If a user of this website and not Random Plaza makes a link, URL, or some direction to another website, then visiting that website is done at your own risk. If the link or similar thing is not done by a user, then still Random Plaza doesn't control the other website so you should exercise normal caution like with every link or similar thing that you get.

The website, services, etc. of Random Plaza are provided on an "as is", "as available", "experimental" basis without any representations or warranties. Random Plaza does not represent or warrant that its services or website will be accessible, available, timely, uninterrupted, secure, accurate, complete, or entirely error-free. You may not rely upon any representation or warranty regarding the Random Plaza's website or services by any third party in contravention of the foregoing statements. Random Plaza specifically disclaims all warranties, representations, and conditions whether expressed or implied, arising by statute, operation of law, usage of trade, course of dealing, or otherwise, including but not limited to, warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or title with respect to the Random Plaza Services, or other services or goods provided under Random Plaza's Use Agreement. You understand and agree that Random Plaza shall bear no risk with respect to your sale or purchase of products or services, including, without limitation, any risk associated with fraud or loss of personal information.

Under no circumstances will: (a) Random Plaza or any of its parents, affiliates or vendors (or any officers, directors, employees or agents of the parties, or its affiliates, parents, or vendors) be liable for any consequential, incidental, indirect, special or exemplary damages (however or whenever arising), including, without limitation, damages for lost profits, lost revenue, anticipated profits, cost of procurement of substitute services, lost business or injury to business reputation, under any theory of liability or cause of action whether in tort (including negligence), contract or otherwise, regardless of whether it has been advised of the possibility of such damages; or (b) Random Plaza's total liability to you, whether arising in tort (including negligence), contract or otherwise, under this agreement or with regard to any Random Plaza products or services, exceed the aggregate compensation Random Plaza received for providing the Random Plaza's services to you during the thirty (30) days preceding the date on which the claim arose, $1 USD, or the minimum legal amount, whichever is less.
Old browsers (generally only Netscape and from the 20th century and before Netscape version 6.0, but there could be other browsers) support the HTML tag "layer", "ilayer", the style property "include-source", and/or the HTML "div" tag's property "src". If You have a web browser that supports these tags or properties, it is Your responsibility to upgrade or change Your browser before viewing user-generated content as we will not be filtering these out.

Random Plaza does not know everything about every single product in the world, such as legitimacy of the product.

It is also your duty to check and make sure no one impersonates your trading partner.

Random Plaza is a site for 18+. It is supposed to be mainly work safe, but it possibly may contain material that is offensive, vulgar, sexual, harassing, awful, shocking, disgusting, racist, sexist, bigoted, give seizures to photosensitive people, upsetting or related. Users are able to embed things such as Adobe Flash into listings and may also contain things of this nature. If something is very obscene or illegal and Random Plaza needs to remove it, there will be a delay time between when it is first posted and when Random Plaza can remove it.

You need to use careful about your own safety when meeting people in person. And obviously Random Plaza has not screened people that you would meet in person from this website to tell if they are safe.

Random Plaza has currency conversion systems. These are never 100% up to date and are always out of date to some degree.

Misc legal stuff
When you send content to this website such as posting listings, posting in forums, sending private messages to Random Plaza by email or Random Plaza's contact forms, you retain the copyright but you allow Random Plaza an irrevocable, non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers), worldwide right to exercise the copyright, database, and publicity rights (yet no other rights) you have in the content, in any media that exists in the present or in the future. Moreover, you agree that the content you send shall be considered non-confidential, including even things such as invite-only listings or private email. Moreover, any ideas or suggestions you make, you agree to submit those in the public domain and so allow Random Plaza and anyone else to use them for free. Furthermore, any suggestions for change to Random Plaza's website, services, etc. you send Random Plaza or post on this website are considered to be non-confidential and non-proprietary.

You agree to what is set forth at the URL http://randomplaza.com/help.intellectual.property.issues.php, which is hereby incorporated into the terms of this Agreement by reference.

In the event you cause fines and/or penalties to be charged to Random Plaza by another entity, you agree to immediately reimburse Random Plaza for said fines or penalties.

If you are an agency or instrumentality of a state of the United States and are precluded by the law of your state from entering into indemnification obligations, then the obligations related to indemnification shall apply only to the extent permitted by such state law; and if permitted by law, you are not allowed to access this website while precluded.

Severability: If any provision of Random Plaza's Use Agreement or anything in Random Plaza's website linked to from its Use Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable for any reason, the remaining provisions will continue in full force without being impaired or invalidated in any way. The parties agree to replace any invalid provision with a valid provision, which most closely approximates the intent and economic effect of the invalid provision. Headings are used for convenience of reference only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of any section, or in any way affect Random Plaza's Use Agreement.

Governing Law; Jurisdiction; Venue: Random Plaza's Use Agreement and performance under it will be interpreted, construed and enforced in all respects in accordance with the laws of the State of Nevada, excluding (i) that body of law known as conflicts of law and (ii) the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. You hereby irrevocably consent to the personal jurisdiction of and venue in the state and federal courts located in Lyon County, Nevada with respect to any action, claim or proceeding arising out of or related to this Agreement and agree not to commence or prosecute any such action, claim or proceeding other than in such courts. You also agree that if there's a disagreement about venue and it is brought into the courts, that the venue for that will be Lyon County, Nevada.

No action, regardless of form, arising out of or in conjunction with the subject matter of Random Plaza's Use Agreement, except for claims involving intellectual property, claims to recover outstanding amounts due Random Plaza and claims for indemnification, may be brought by either party more than one (1) year after the cause of action arose.