Terms of use

What this is

AuctionTool.ai is a tool for running an auction: you add the lots, we give you the codes, the screen and the bidding. It is run by Online Galerij B.V., registered in the Netherlands under Chamber of Commerce number 74764225, The Hague, trading as Auction Tool. Our address is Schoolstraat 1, 2271 BZ Voorburg, the Netherlands and our VAT number is NL860018167B01.

These terms are between you — the person or organisation setting up an auction — and us. They are not between us and the people who bid at your evening.

We are not part of your sale

This is the most important thing on this page, so it comes first.

When someone wins a lot at your auction, the agreement is between that person and you. Not us. We do not own the lots, we do not hold the money, we do not deliver anything, and we are not the auctioneer.

That means we cannot make a winner pay, and we cannot make you hand over a lot. If something goes wrong between you and a bidder, you settle it together — the same way you would if the whole evening had been run on paper.

What you pay for

Setting up an auction costs nothing. You can add every lot, print the codes, put the screen on a projector and rehearse the whole evening without paying. You pay once, when you want to open the real bidding.

A single auction is paid for once and works for that auction. A yearly plan covers a set number of auctions in twelve months; if you need more than that, you can buy extra ones. There is no automatic renewal that you have to remember to cancel.

Prices include VAT where VAT applies. You get an invoice by e-mail the moment the payment goes through.

If your evening does not happen

Auctions get cancelled. A hall falls through, a storm, not enough people.

If your auction never opened for real bidding, write to us and we will refund what you paid. If it did run, we cannot — the work it was bought for has been done.

Under EU consumer rules you normally have fourteen days to change your mind about something bought online. By opening your auction for real bidding you are asking us to start the service inside that period, and once it has run, that right ends. Before it runs, it stands.

What we ask of you

Do not auction anything you are not allowed to sell. That includes the obvious ones — weapons, medicines, live animals, anything stolen — and the less obvious: a signed shirt is fine, a "meet the player" that the player has not agreed to is not.

Make sure you are allowed to run the auction. In some countries a public charity auction or raffle needs a permit. That is your responsibility and we cannot check it for you.

Be honest about the lots. If a bidder pays for a weekend in a cabin, the cabin should exist.

When we can stop an auction

Almost never, and only for a reason we can name: illegal lots, an attempt to defraud bidders, or a payment that never arrived. If that happens we tell you why, in an e-mail, from a person.

We do not remove an auction because we do not like the cause.

When something breaks

We build this to work on the night, and we test it. But an evening depends on things we do not control: the wifi in your hall, the projector, the phone in someone’s pocket, and services we in turn depend on.

If the tool fails and your auction cannot run because of it, we refund what you paid for that auction. Beyond that we cannot be held liable for what an evening might have raised — that is a number nobody can prove, and we would not know where to stop.

Nothing here limits liability for damage caused deliberately or by gross negligence on our part. That is not something you can sign away, and we would not ask you to.

Changing these terms

If we change something that matters, we e-mail everyone with an auction coming up before it takes effect. Small corrections — a clearer sentence, a fixed typo — we simply make.

Dutch law applies, and a dispute goes to a Dutch court. If you are a consumer, the rules of your own country that protect you stay in force regardless.