In another word: DON’T.

There are many reasons not to buy gold on eBay.  You can read my other guide about buying gold online (not through eBay) to see those reasons. To sum up the other guide and the reasons for not buying gold online (as they are applicable for buying gold on eBay) are:

1.  It is against the rules of the game.
 
2.  You will eventually get caught because Jagex is not looking for you but for the gold sellers. However, when they find the gold sellers, they will find you.
 
3.  You will not only lose the account that you used to trade to get the gold, you will lose all your accounts associated with your IP.
 
4.  You will lose the gold you just traded for when you lose your account.

Right now however if you even attempt to buy Runescape gold on eBay you will not get what you ordered. The only auctions that the gold farmers are currently listing on eBay are for auctions that have a selling price of less than $0.99 per listing. The sole reason the gold farmers are doing this is so they can get their auctions online and use them for advertising their own ecommerce websites. They have absolutely no intention of selling you 1 million gp for 49 or 99 cents. Even if you end up bidding on these auctions and winning you will not get anything in return.  More likely than not, Jagex will report the auction and it will be removed from eBay for violating Jagex’s policies.  You will then have paid for your gold and you will have very little if any recourse in getting your money back.

Also if you look at the accounts that are attempting to sell Runescape Gold on eBay they are for the most part brand new accounts or accounts with very little feedback.  If you actually look at the feedback they have received you will see that the gold sellers have simply set up hundreds of sham accounts and are giving each other bogus feedback in order to circumvent the rules on eBay. It is a real problem on eBay right now and Jagex is doing all it can to combat it.

So all these thousands of auctions for Runescape Gold with starting bids of 1 cent are just a scam and a way for the offending companies (for the most part 3 or 4 major gold selling companies) to get their website advertised for cheap.  It costs less for them to put up bogus auctions on eBay and use it for advertising than it does for them to use Google adsense or Yahoo’s advertising mechanisms.

The bottom line once again:  Don’t buy Gold.

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