You can usually get clubs for around 50 percent off their original price. Unlike live auctions, however, virtual golf auctions do not verify the used goods they sell. Most act as something of a cyber-classified section, posting photos, descriptions of the condition of the clubs and specifications provided by the seller. Sellers register with the auction site by providing their names, e-mail addresses and other personal details before listing what they wish to sell along a minimum acceptable bid. Buyers also register, then bid.
Winners usually pay with cashier's checks or money orders.
Shipping arrangements are made directly between buyer and seller. Auction web sites make their money on a commission from each sale, which ranges from zero percent to 15 percent. Not that bidding in the virtual world is without real bogeys. Buyers and sellers may engage in their wheeling and dealing in the virtual world, but the risk of fraud looms real. Online auction sales remained the top Internet fraud reported in 1999 to the Internet Fraud Watch, an arm of the National Consumers League, a leading consumer protection organization, soaring from 68 percent of frauds in 1998 to a whopping 87 percent last year.