Looking to do some travelling but don’t want to break the bank with today’s hotel prices? Why don’t you just rent a room someone? Airbnb allows people to list their spare rooms for rent on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis!

Now if you’re like me, you are immediately suspicious of renting a room from a stranger for short periods of time. After all, isn’t that the way like… EVERY horror movie starts? But my initial timidness was greatly alleviated when I noted a key feature of the site: customer reviews. While every user is forced to add a profile picture and get a reference from a friend via Facebook, only a host’s customers can write a good review about them. So if you check out your host and other users are telling you that they’ve noticed the host likes to sharpen his chainsaw on his guests or that he cooks strange chemicals together in his basement, just don’t rent it from them. Otherwise, its really not so different from eBay: if they are trying to sell a bad product, people will notice and cry out.

Now let’s flip this around– who’s really going to rent out their own room to a stranger? A couple of them danged hooligan teenagers waltz on in with some of their mysterious brown-bagged beverages in hand, demanding your key, and you’re feeling rather uneasy. Well rest assured! Airbnb has you covered with 2 other key features of their business plan: the ability to decline a guest, and a $50,000 Host Guarantee. Both more simple than the other feature which I found so important to their success, Airbnb guarantees to pay the host for any loss or damage due to theft or vandalism caused by an Airbnb guest for up to $50,000, if you don’t decline your guest. So unless you’re hoping to rent out a room where you’re storing your prized, one of a kind $55,000 vase, this is probably enough to set you at ease too.

All things said and done, Airbnb seems to have all of their users covered. Just check out some of their other features on their safety page. Safety is obviously key to this kind of business, and Airbnb realizes it!

Its like Ebay with lower prices and a different kind of system. I’ll explain. They present the site with a page showing lots of absurd deals; ipads for $3.00, TV’s for $4.00. Then they ask you to put bids on the items. Each bid is a couple of cents more than the previous bid.

Here is the catch, before you start you pay the site for a set amount of bids, around $60. Then you can begin bidding on any items they have on auction, each bid is like 5 cents. But the other catch is, each bid costs you money even if you don’t win.

This site could save you a lot of money, but it is risky. How many bids are you willing to put in? How high a price do you want to pay? And when is it actually saving you money?

This is up to the buyer.

If done right you could save a lot of money, if not then its pretty much a casino.

http://www.quibids.com/

I save so much money on books when I buy on the internet. A lot of textbooks are really expensive no matter what they are (Grove City Book store) but on the internet you can use the free market, which is this country, and find a book that is affordable.

Most of the time when buying books you buy from bookstores around the world and find the cheapest deals. In this there isn’t much interaction with the customers or providers, but with internet stores like eBay, the price fluctuates a lot and you have to play the system to get the right price.

In the recent semesters I have bought all of my books from a site called AbeBooks. This site is really easy to use and provides a path to buy books from all across the country easily, with a very affordable price. Shipping is not expensive and arrives in a decent amount of time depending on who you buy it from and how far across the country it is coming from. Most are efficient.

As long as you can deal with going on the internet and being alright with taking time to look for whatever you want, buying off of the internet is really convenient and inexpensive.

Security is a number one priority for many internet users who are looking to make online transactions. A common problem, however, is that many users do not even know what to look for when trying to identify internet fraud. Awareness of the most common internet fraud scams is the first and best defense against internet fraud. Watch out for…

• Lottery Scams
• Internet Auction Fraud
• Nigerian Advance Fee Frauds
• Phishing and Pharming for Identity Theft
• Passive Residual Income Scams or “get rich scam websites”
• Lotteries and others that send you a counterfeit check
• Freecreditreport.com
• Work at Home Scams
• Pyramid Schemes
• Property Investment Schemes
• 900 Phone Number Scams

Internet Fraud is difficult to prevent and even more difficult to settle once it occurs. If you have been a victim of an internet scam or fraud then you can file a claim with the Internet Complain Center which is a FBI – NW3C partnership.

I have been victim of internet fraud in the form of non-delivery in a textbook I ordered at the beginning of this semester. My file claimed has still not been settled and is doubtful that I will ever get my money or my textbook. Since then I have become more aware of what to look for and how to defend against online fraud.

I personally think that craigslist is much easier to use than eBay. I experience craigslist sell tool, because I had to sell a lots of staff for my boss, and I have found that listing my items through craigslist have gave better results. One of the features that I like in craigslist is that you can post or list your items within your state, which makes more sense fore me. With this feature the customer can find an item within the distance that he or she is willing to travel, and that’s one of the things that eBay does not offer to the customer. Another advantage of using craigslist is that sellers do not have to pay a fee to post the item, however, this has a downfall because craigslist does not offer protection for buyers of sellers. But unlike eBay the costumer has the option to go and pick up the item the same day. In my own experience this have not been a problem yet, and is easier for me to list something on craigslist without worrying to pay a fee, which is good because I am a college student who does not have much money. I think this two selling engines offer the costumer different tools to sell or buy, but in my opinion I will pick craigslist, because offers you a free service and amazing bargains.

Both of these websites can be used to sell possessions on-line, but the important question is which one is better to use for the seller of goods? The reason most people sell items on the Internet is because it is often easier than selling something to a consignment store and there are more opportunities to find people who will demand your product, raising the price, and generating more profit to the seller. People want to sell their items on a website that is either free or doesn’t cost them a lot of time to sell something. E-bay.com allows your item for sale to be viewed by millions of people everyday. You can decide how long to leave the item up for sale and transaction costs are relatively easy because once an item is sold all you need to do is collect the money from the buyer and ship them the item. If you have a lot of items to sell you can open an E-bay store but this costs money. If money is tight craigslist.org seems to be a wiser choice. You can open up a free account anytime. After you have an account you simply enter in what geographic location you are from and categorize what your item falls under. While you may have to do a little more marketing with your ad, it is worth it in the long run. You can post your classified ad URL in the bottom of your emails, message boards, or pass it along in your email lists to friends and family. Also if your item is near enough to somebody, they might even come pick up the item without you having to take care of shipping responsibilities. Craigslist.org is thus becoming more locally centered while E-bay is more international.