the Lily Auction's User Agreement

Any user who is found to act in violation of  the Lily Auction agreement may be suspended from using this service. If you do not agree with any policy or amendment in this agreement, please contact the auctioneer immediately.

Eligibility for Membership: Our services are available only to individuals who can form legally binding contracts under applicable law. Without limiting the foregoing, our services are not available to minors. If you do not qualify, please do not use our services. the Lily Auction may refuse our services (such as, but not limited to listings, chat, and bidding) to anyone at any time, in our sole discretion.

Fees: Joining the Lily Auction is free. Our then-current Fees Policy for selling items on the Lily Auction is available at http://www.daylily.com/auctionfiles/terms.html, and are incorporated herein by reference. Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in U.S. Dollars. You are responsible for paying all applicable taxes and for all hardware, software, service and other costs you incur to bid, buy, procure a listing from us or access our servers. We may in our sole discretion add, delete or change some or all of our services at any time.

the Lily Auction is Only a Venue: Our site acts as the venue for sellers to conduct auctions and for bidders to bid on sellers’ auctions. We are not involved in the actual transaction between buyers and sellers. As a result, we have no control over the quality, safety or legality of the items advertised, the truth or accuracy of the listings, the ability of sellers to sell items or the ability of buyers to buy items. We cannot and do not control whether or not sellers will complete the sale of items they offer or buyers will complete the purchase of items they have bid on. In addition, note that there are risks of dealing with foreign nationals, underage persons or people acting under false pretense.

Because user authentication on the Internet is difficult, the Lily Auction cannot and does not confirm that each user is who they claim to be. Therefore, because you must be careful in dealing with other users to avoid fraud, we have established a user-initiated feedback system to help you evaluate who you are dealing with. We also encourage you to communicate directly with a trading partner to help you evaluate with whom you are dealing. Please practice safe trading.

Because we do not and cannot be involved in user-to-user dealings, in the event that you have a dispute with one or more users, you release the Lily Auction (and our agents and employees) from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

For legal reasons, we cannot nor do we try to control the information provided by other users which is made available through our system. By its very nature, other people's information may be offensive, harmful or inaccurate, and in some cases will be mislabeled or deceptively labeled. We expect that you will use caution -- and common sense -- when using our site.

Fraud: the Lily Auction has zero tolerance for fraud of any kind. Please review the Lily Auction's Fraud Policy.

Bidding and Buying in the Lily Auction: As a bidder, if you have the highest bid at the end of the auction, at or above the minimum bid price (or in the case of reserve auctions, at or above the reserve price), and your bid is accepted by the seller, you are obligated to complete the transaction. Bids are not retractable except in exceptional circumstances such as the seller materially changing the description of the item after your bid or clear typographical errors, or when you cannot authenticate the identity of the seller. You may not bid in a way that pulls other bidders to their maximum bid, retract the high bid, and then rebind at a small increment above the legitimate high bidder (bid manipulation).

Successful Bidder must pay seller within 10 days of Auction close: However, unless a seller is known and/or has a good feedback rating, a buyer should always wait until he has received email response from the seller before sending payment. Buyers should always try to contact the seller immediately, but, when a seller has a feedback rating of less than 10, the buyer should first get an email confirmation from the seller before sending payment to the seller. If one user asks another to ship or send payment to a different address, other than the address listed in your Lily Auction notices or Closed auctions list, please notify the Lily Auction Auctioneer immediately. Any user who does not have their current and correct contact information in their registration, is not a valid user until their contact information is updated.

If a buyer wishes to take longer to make payment, in excess of 10 days, then the buyer must ask the seller for an extension before a bid is placed. This rule does not apply to cases where a seller does not respond to attempted email contacts by the buyer. However, if this happens, please report such to the Lily Auction Auctioneer immediately.

All sales made through contacts through the Lily Auction site, must go through the Lily Auction. Users of the Lily Auction may not use the Lily Auction site to ask a seller to sell an item directly, unless such request include that the seller list the item with the BuyItNow or Store option. Doing so, will allow the buyer, and seller,  to:
1) Keep track of the sale by getting the email notices as well as having access to the sale information in your "Closed" and "Archived" auctions lists. We will keep records of all sales available to you for at least 7 months.
2) Make sure that our mediation services are available if something goes wrong during the sale, and
3) Allows the Lily Auction to receive it's fair commission from the seller, without which we cannot continue to operate.

All sellers have agreed to not sell items directly to you when contacted through the Lily Auction without listing the item on the Lily Auction. All sellers have agreed to list, using the Reservepost or Instant Buy option, any item which has been requested of them, through the Lily Auction,  to sell. This form allows sellers to post the item/s that you want and will only allow you to buy them.

The Lily Auction is based upon Trust and we depend on our users to have integrity and good faith with regard to our rules. Any violation of our rules, may result in suspension from the site.

Listing and Selling in the Lily Auction: Listings are text descriptions, graphics and pictures on the Lily Auction's web site supplied by you that either; (a) textually describe the item you are listing for auction, or (b) link to the text, graphics and picture(s) describing the item you are listing for auction. You may post on the Lily Auction's site either or both of these listing types, provided that you place such listings in an appropriate category. At any given time you may not promote identical items in more than seven listings on the web site. You may not list ANY written URL's in your item descriptions without prior authorization from the Lily Auction Auctioneer. Likewise, you may not use images that have URL's printed on them, again, without prior authorization from the Lily Auction Auctioneer.

If you receive one or more bids at or above your stated minimum bid or price then you are obligated to complete the transaction with the highest bidder, unless there is an exceptional circumstance, such as; (x) the buyer fails to meet the terms of your listing (such as payment method), or (y) you cannot authenticate the identity of the buyer. You may not email bidders in a currently open auction being run by a different seller, offering similar or the same items at any price level (bid siphoning), nor may you use an alias to place bids on your auction for any reason.

Make email contact with your winning bidders: Sellers must contact the winning bidders to verify where and how payment should be made, within 3 days of auction close.

Shipping: Once an item is sold, and payment has been received, it is the responsibility of the seller to get the item to the buyer.  It is recommended that the seller have the item tracked and/or insured. Tracking verifies that the item has indeed been shipped and it also verifies that the item has been delivered or not delivered. If, for some reason, the item is lost in the shipping process, it is the sellers obligation to either replace the item or refund the buyer's money. Added 09/19/07: This policy is only intended for 'in same-country' shipping. Because of possible international quarantine requirements and resultant delays, it is the buyer and seller's responsibility to be clear with each other about quarantine requirements and international shipping policies from country to country.

The Lily Auction is a wonderful service to all gardeners and nurseries who wish to make use of the internet, and, like any other good service, has costs  to develop and still more to maintain. Without commissions, the Lily Auction would not be able to exist. Every effort will be made to keep the auction commissions as low as possible but we need your support and integrity as well. Therefore, by using the Lily Auction you agree to the following:

a) Contacting Unsuccessful Bidders: If an Auction or Store Item is successful the seller may only sell the item to the highest bidder. The Seller may not contact the unsuccessful bidders and offer the item to them as well, with the following exception: If the highest bidder backs out of the agreement, the seller may contact the second highest bidder and so on until he finds a bidder who agrees to buy the item at their bid amount or at an amount agreeable to both the seller and the buyer. Again, at no time may an unsuccessful bidder be offered the item unless the winning bidder has backed out or defaulted. Otherwise, if the seller wishes to sell more of the same item, the item should be re-submitted. 

b) Contacts from Non-winning Users: Some buyers may want to contact you to see if you will sell to them directly or if you have another item/s for sale. In the event that the Seller is contacted through the Lily Auction and is asked to sell any item and the price is agreed upon, the Seller must list the item/s to sell with  the Reservepost Form for the agreed upon price.  Once the item is posted using the Reservepost Form, the would-be buyer will automatically be sent an email with an easy link back to that auction where it can be quickly purchased. This makes it easy and will allow both Seller and Buyer to keep track of the sale since the information will be kept in the closed and archived auctions lists and email notices will be sent out to both the buyer and seller once the buy is made. This, again, also allows the Lily Auction to receive it's fair commission.

c) Soliciting Other Sales: Unauthorized advertising, including listing of links, URL's, phone numbers and/or personal or commercial email addresses, is strictly prohibited in the Auction Descriptions. This includes anything you have printed on your images as well. All sellers can be contacted through the "Ask Seller A Question" link that is always within all auctions. Additional email addresses are not allowed your auction descriptions. After the auction closes, the buyer's email addresses will be available to the seller and the seller's email address will be available to the buyer, in the Closed Auctions list.  Moreover, the Seller agrees to not solicit, in the auction descriptions, any sales of items, other than the items that are being offered for sale in the particular Auction.

d) Offering Several Options: A seller may offer several options from which the winning bidder can choose, after the close of auction, a specified number of the listed options. However, all option must be listed within the auction description. In this way,  a seller may offer the choice of a limited number of items among a list of possible choices.  So if the seller wanted to offer, say 3, or 5, or 25 items from a list, then he or she would state the details of the list of possible choices from which the buyer may choose. In this case the seller may not list more than 50 choices per auction. Again, please refer to section b above regarding the use of the BuyItNow feature for listing items that are sold outside of your current auctions.

e) Items Offered Must Exist and Be In Your Posession: Items offered for auction must exist and be held for the winner of the auction prior to the items being listed. At no time should a buyer be told that the item that was won in auction was sold out or is otherwise unavailable. In other words, you must have the item in your possession before you offer it on the Lily Auction and listing the item means that you are reserving the item for the auction winner.  So, if you have purchased an item but have not yet received it, you may not offer the item on the Lily Auction until you actually have it in your possession. Other rules may also apply: please refer to 'Amendment 09/20/06' of THE LILY AUCTION RULES FOR PLANT SELLERS.

f) Seller Must Sell: Once a bid is placed on an auction, the Seller agrees to honor the sale, regardless of what the winning bid is. Once an item has a bid, the Seller is obligated to sell.

Please click here to review the GUIDELINES FOR PLANT SELLERS that you must agree to as a seller in the Lily Auction.

Without limiting any other remedies, the Lily Auction may suspend or terminate your account if you are found to have engaged in fraudulent activity in connection with our site.

Use of Copy-Righted material in your auctions: The use of copyrighted material in your auctions, including images, is expressly forbidden unless you are the owner of the copyright or you have permission from the owner of the copyright to use the material in your auction.

Your Information: Your information includes any information you provide to us or other users during the registration, bidding or listing process, in any public message area or through any email feature (defined herein as "Your Information"). With respect to Your Information:

6.1 You are solely responsible for Your Information, and we act as a passive conduit for your online distribution and publication of Your Information. However, we may take any action with respect to such information we deem necessary or appropriate in our sole discretion if we believe it may create liability for us or may cause us to lose (in whole or in part) the services of our Sips or other suppliers.

6.2 Your Information and your items for sale on the Lily Auction: (a) shall not be fraudulent or involve the sale of counterfeit or stolen items; (b) shall not infringe any third party's copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other proprietary rights or rights of publicity or privacy; (c) shall not violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation (including without limitation those governing export control, consumer protection, unfair competition, anti discrimination or false advertising); (d) shall not be defamatory, trade libelous, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing; and (e) shall not link directly or indirectly to or include descriptions of goods or services that: (i) are prohibited under this Agreement; (ii) are identical to other items you have up for auction but are priced lower than your auction item's reserve or minimum bid amount; (iii) are concurrently listed for auction on a web site other than the Lily Auction or (iv) you do not have a right to link to or include. Furthermore, you may not post on our site or sell through our site any item that, by paying to us the listing fee, could cause us to violate any applicable law, statute, ordinance or regulation.

6.3 Solely to enable the Lily Auction to use Your Information you supply us with, so that we are not violating any rights you might have in that information, you agree to grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise the copyright and publicity rights (but no other rights) you have in Your Information, in any media now known or not currently known, with respect to Your Information. the Lily Auction will only use Your Information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

No Price Manipulation: Sellers may not manipulate the price of their item, either by using a shill (a secondary account or third party) or by bidding themselves.

System Integrity: You may not use any device, software or routine to interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Lily Auction site or any auction being conducted on our site. You may not take any action which imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure. You may not disclose or share your password to any third parties or use your password for any unauthorized purpose.

Feedback: You may not take any actions which may undermine the integrity of the feedback system, such as: leaving positive feedback for yourself using secondary User IDs or third parties; leaving negative feedback for other users using secondary accounts or third parties (feedback bombing); or leaving negative feedback if a user fails to perform some action that is outside the scope of the auction (feedback extortion). If you earn a net feedback rating of -4 (minus four), your membership will automatically suspend, and you will be unable to list or bid. Also, you may never leave more than one 80 character feedback remark per transaction. Please review the Lily Auction Feedback Guidelines.

Because feedback ratings are not designed for any purpose other than for facilitating trading between Lily Auction users, you may not market or promote Lily Auction feedback in any venue, publication or web site, other than the Lily Auction.

You may not collect or publish any information regarding other Lily Auction users, including but not limited to user-feedback, usernames and users' identities.

Breach: Any user found to be in violation of this agreement will be considered to be in "Breach" of this contract . We may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership, any of your current auctions, and any other information you place on the site if you breach this Agreement or if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us.

Privacy: Our then-current privacy policies, available at http://www.daylily.com/auctionfiles/privacy-policy.html, are incorporated herein by reference.

No Warranty: WE AND OUR SUPPLIERS PROVIDE THE LILY AUCTION WEBSITE AND OUR SERVICES "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. WE AND OUR SUPPLIERS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. Some states do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, so the foregoing disclaimer may not apply to you. This warranty gives you specific legal rights and you may also have other legal rights which vary from state to state.

Limit of Liability: IN NO EVENT SHALL WE OR OUR SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR LOST PROFITS OR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (HOWEVER ARISING, INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT.

OUR LIABILITY, AND THE LIABILITY OF OUR SUPPLIERS, TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTIES IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCE IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT OF FEES YOU PAY TO US IN THE 12 MONTHS PRIOR TO THE ACTION GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY, AND (B) $100. Some states do not allow the limitation of liability, so the foregoing limitation may not apply to you.

General Compliance with Laws: You shall comply with all applicable laws, statutes, ordinances and regulations regarding your use of our service and your bidding on, listing, purchase and sale of items.

No Agency: You and the Lily Auction are independent contractors, and no agency, partnership, joint venture, employee-employer or franchisor-franchisee relationship is intended or created by this Agreement.

Notices: Except as explicitly stated otherwise, any notices shall be given by email to the Lily Auction (in the case of the Lily Auction) or to the email address you provide to the Lily Auction, during the registration process (in your case), or such other address as the party shall specify. Notice shall be deemed given 24 hours after email is sent, unless the sending party is notified that the email address is invalid. Alternatively, we may give you notice by certified mail, postage prepaid and return receipt requested, to the address provided to the Lily Auction during the registration process. In such case, notice shall be deemed given 3 days after the date of mailing.

General: This Agreement shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of California as such laws are applied to agreements entered into and to be performed entirely within California between California residents. We do not guarantee continuous, uninterrupted or secure access to our services, and operation of our site may be interfered with by numerous factors outside of our control. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck and the remaining provisions shall be enforced. Headings are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe or describe the scope or extent of such section. Our failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. This Agreement sets forth the entire understanding and agreement between us with respect to the subject matter hereof.

Disclosures: The services hereunder are offered by Michael Longo, located at P.O. Box 28, Papaikou, HI 96781. Fees for our services are described at http://www.daylily.com/auctionfiles/terms.hrtml. 

AMMENDMENTS:

Amendment 08/01/00: Item Suspension: The Lily Auction reserves the right to temporarily or permanently remove any item from the Lily Auction, for any reason whatsoever, and at it's own discretion, in the event that the item has brought up a legitimate complaint from another user.

Amendment 10/20/00: Keeping your contact information current: It is solely the responsibility of each user to keep your contact information current, including your email address. If you have moved to a new address or have changed your email address YOU ARE NO LONGER A VALID USER of the Lily Auction until you have updated your registration information. You may update your contact information using the Change Registration link at the bottom of the Lily Auction pages.  Any user who is found to have a dead email address or inaccurate contact information may be removed from the Lily Auction. 

Amendment 12/7/00: Verification of Identity: If requested by the auctioneer, all users agree to verify their identity and contact information, including home and business phone numbers. If necessary the Auctioneer may request up to 2 mutually acceptable references that can verify the identity of the user. All information obtained from our users will be private and used only in accordance with our Privacy Policy. 

Amendment 05/29/07: Voiding a CLOSED Auction because of non-payment: Non-payment is a serious matter and can result in suspension of the bidder from the Lily Auction. It is important for Sellers to report non-payment in a timely manner for several reasons: 1) To get credit for the seller's fees, 2) To void the item so it can be listed again, and 3) To protect all sellers of the Lily Auction from bidders who would bid and then not pay. Please allow at least 10 days, after you have contacted your buyer, to receive payment.  If you do not receive payment within a reasonable amount of time, you may wish to void the auction and obtain credit for the seller's fees and leave negative feedback. If so, you must report non-payment within 10 to 30 days of auction close and use the "Support/Questions" link, the Lily Auction Support Form, to contact us regarding non-payment. (In the case of Instant Buy items, the closing date is the bid date).

Parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are commercially available that may assist you in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors. If you are interested in learning more about these protections, information is available at http://www.worldvillage.com/wv/school/html/control.htm or other analogous sites providing information on such protections.