The Law
Your sale must be in compliance with Great British law, especially relevant; the VCRA, which has laid down various restrictions on the trade of Imitation Firearms (IF) and Realistic Imitation Firearms (RIF). Remember, the seller is responsible for checking and verifying the legality of a sale. Please see the UK Law section of the forums if you need any guidance on this and open a topic if you're unsure. None of the below is legal advice. In short:
As a seller you are liable for who you're selling to.
No airsoft gun can be sold to someone under the age of 18 irrespective of whether it's 2-tone or a RIF (i.e. black/realistically coloured)
As a seller you must take precautions to satisfy yourself that who you're selling to has a valid defence against prosecution for owning an airsoft gun - for the majority of cases this means the person you're selling to should be an airsoft skirmisher. Some things you can check are:
Skirmishing site membership
UKARA database membership
Photographic proof that a member is a skirmisher (i.e. pictures of them playing)
In the interests of protecting the right to play airsoft in the UK, please be diligent when coordinating your sale, ensuring you adhere to the points above. Be responsible and reasonable in your requests for information on another player - do not ask for more information than you require or would be happy to give yourself, but do satisfy yourself that who you're selling to is a legitimate player.
Forum Specific Rules (action will be taken against your account for disregarding these)
Failure to comply with the rules will result in you receiving a ‘Forum Warning’. Warnings start with the verbal kind and steadily increase in respect of seriousness/repeat offences right through to a ban and deletion of all posts and topics along with your user account. Find out more about ‘Forum Warnings’.
All sales / trades must take place between two adults (i.e. over 18 years of age).
All sales and swaps must use the sales template. Add additional information to let buyers know your trade preferences or location for collection. This will help sell your gun or gear as listing without pictures rarely sell.
All sales must have an asking price. The price must be in UK Sterling £.
All sales and swaps advertisements must have a picture, all pictures must be taken by the seller. Do not use a retailers pictures - take your own. There must be at least one photo with a piece of paper showing your AFUK forum name and date next to the item(s) for sale/swap (this updated rule is effective from 01/12/2024). Do not use Photoshop or other editing software to include your username and date, this is what scammers do and will result in adverts being deleted from the Classifieds. Using photos with different usernames from other forums, and links to other forum photos, is no longer acceptable.
You must have access to the item that you're selling. You cannot be selling items that you do not own, are not able to post immediately or being sold on the behalf of someone else.
You must include a picture of every item that you are selling. It is not acceptable to just show a box or use a stock images. Pictures must be visible in the listing (placing a link instead of a picture is not permitted).
Do not list the same item twice simultaneously. I.e. don't 'double list' an item. You cannot have an advert in both Sales and Swaps section for the same item, just select "For sale or swap" for advert type.
Once your item(s) is/are definitely sold/you've found the item you're looking for (even if the sale happened elsewhere), please mark the advertisement as 'complete' by visiting the listing and clicking 'Set as Complete'.
Second hand airsoft-relevant items only. No selling/swapping of any other items, this includes offering items such as consoles for trade. There are no exceptions to this rule.
No sales of knives, real guns, airguns, or any item of any description that readily fires metal munitions, metal munitions themselves, or any other weapon of any type, aside from IFs and RIFs within the legal limits. The following limits are on all sales with no exceptions:
<370ft/s for full auto systems with a .20g BB (1.3J is the legal maximum)
<520ft/s for semi auto systems .20g BB (2.5J is the legal maximum)
<520ft/s for single fire systems .20g BB (2.5J is the legal maximum)
The Classifieds are not for retailers / shops. Any advert that appears to be from a retailer will be removed.
You must communicate with your buyer/seller once a transaction is initiated (i.e. ignoring their PMs or topics asking what's going on with a sale/purchase).
If you complete a trade/sale of any kind via the forums, please leave feedback for the seller/buyer, this allows us to see who we can trust or who we need to keep an eye on. You may leave feedback by going here.
Any suspicions about the item(s) or seller should be sent via PM to a Moderator. Use the "Report this advert" link at the bottom of the listing and include a message (this will flag an issue for Moderators to look at).
Transaction Advice (action will not be taken against your account for disregarding these)
When buying or trading, we recommend that you take down the following details of the other party: full name, address, telephone number, email, alternate telephone number (work or mobile). It is wise to check the address is legitimate and that the telephone number is answered by the person you are dealing with. We also recommend that you request a photo of the items with a piece of paper next to it with the sellers username and contact details written on.
We recommend PayPal for online transactions due to their excellent buyer and seller protection. Bear in mind that methods such as cheque, postal order, bank transfer or other may not be protected and as a result of using them you may not be able to retrieve your losses should anything go wrong.
If you are paying for goods via PayPal, please make sure your payment is labelled for goods/services. Sellers may ask you to label your payment as a gift to avoid PayPal fees. However, this will prevent you from being able to access any of the PayPal buyer protection services (i.e. if something goes wrong, your money cannot be refunded). Should sellers ask you to do this, it may be better to offer to pay the fees out of your own pocket instead.
Parcelforce 48 will post RIFs if you declare the contents as an airsoft gun. We recommend them as a courier.
Disputes
Given the nature of trades on these forums, it's impossible for a Moderator to mediate a trade effectively without reading your personal messages (something they cannot do and will never be able to), but if you build up a reputation for being an unscrupulous buyer/seller and are non-communicative you may receive actions against your account.
Legal Disclaimer
Whilst we do moderate the forums, it is not down to us to verify whether someone is legitimate or not, and whilst we will make every endeavour to ensure all our users are keeping within the law, you use these forums at your own risk and we accept no responsibility for any loss or other damages that should transpire as a direct or indirect result of your continued use of our forums.
By participating in our Classifieds section in any way shape or form, you accept that you are doing so at your own risk and hereby indemnify http://www.airsoft-forums.uk (also known as Airsoft Forums UK/AF-UK/AFUK), its moderators, admin and any and all associated parties from any and all responsibility or liability that may transpire due to your continued use of these forums, to the full extent of your right to do so by law.
Help
If you find any of the above rules unclear or would like to ask us a question please PM a Moderator. We would much rather you contacted us than just went ahead and did something.
Thank you.
These rules were last updated 28/11/24