OfferUp

OfferUp Review:

OfferUp is a peer-to-peer sales site that allows most people to list and sell items for free. Modeled after CraigsList, this app works well for local sales.

But people who need to ship items — the one time you’ll get charged — complain about it bitterly. This appears to be the main reason why the site is ruthlessly panned on TrustPilot and SiteJabber.

How it works

If you want to buy or sell with OfferUp, you’ll need to download the smart phone app. All sales transactions — and communication between buyers and sellers — is done on your phone.

The site will require you to verify your email, phone number and will encourage you to link your Facebook account too. This is partly to help buyers and sellers know when they’re dealing with a scammer. (All sales sites have some of these, so it’s smart to be wary.) Buyers and sellers are also asked to rate each other after a sale. This, again, can give you some confidence about who you’re dealing with.

Listing items for sale

To list items for sale, you’ll need to take clear photos and post them with a title, description, price and where the item is located. You can choose to only sell items in person, in which case selling here is completely free.

Buyers typically pay in cash and pick up at your door — or at a safe and well-lighted location of the seller’s choosing. We see almost no complaints about this process.

Shipping woes

But, if you choose the shipping option, you’ll pay a site commission of 12.9% of the sales price (or $1.99, whichever is more). Reviews of the site indicate that the shipping can be dicey.

People have complained that the requisite OfferUp labels didn’t print correctly, thus the site marked their items as undelivered. That left the shipper without the item, without pay and still paying fees. Other complaints say that the site never paid for items that were received by buyers. And a few say their bank accounts, credit or debit cards were hit with fraudulent charges after providing account numbers to OfferUp.

Boosting sales

If you want to increase the number of buyers who see what you have for sale, you can “bump” or “promote” your advertisement by paying a small fee — anywhere from $2 to $8, depending on whether you just want to boost its visibility for a day or for a longer period.

Searching

Those who want to buy on this site can search by location, item type or look at the closets of their favorite sellers. If you have items shipped to you, you’ll pay for the postage and pay any sales tax required by your state. (Postage fees will show when you choose the shipping option.)

Customer service

The other consistent complaint about this site is that its customer service is completely non-existent. No matter whether you’re a buyer or a seller on this platform, if you have a problem, you’re on your own.

Recommendations

This site is even better than CraigsList for local sales. Why? Listing and selling in person is free, just like it is on CraigsList. But, you have more information about buyers and sellers here, so there’s a bit less fraud and attempted fraud. You should, however, always insist that buyers pay cash.

Unfortunately, it’s not the best choice when you’re shipping items to buyers. Too many sellers complain that this is where the OfferUp sales process goes awry. And, as we’ve mentioned, when things go wrong here, customer service is nowhere to be found.

The better site to sell shipped items is eBay. eBay charges seller fees that are almost identical to the seller fees imposed when you ship items on OfferUp. But, we see few complaints about items not arriving as scheduled.

What their users say (from TrustPilot):

I sold an item to a user and shipped it out on 12/26. Due to an issue with the shipping label I had to go pay for a new label. I shipped the item out and went to update their shipping label. Because I had scanned the label I couldn’t find anywhere to update or report that this was invalid. 12/29 the sale is cancelled and the buyer has their money back and my items now. Trying to reach out to user, nothing. Sent OfferUp a message, and they basically told me to **** myself.

Sold something that was shipped and now I have no idea when I will be paid. Someone purchased my item and I shipped it asap and they happily received it. Almost a week later no dep received . Just sitting there in their account stating I need to verify something. Such bs. Nonsense. Impossible to get help. Never again shipping to sell.

I sold an item on Offerup and shipped it. They asked for a debit card or a bank account in order to process the payment. I entered a debit card. Within 24 hours, I had nine fraudulent Amazon purchases for $139 each.

No customer service

This company needs to stop their non existent customer service. How can you charge a fee for listing an item and not have customer support ? Even eBay have way better customer service. This why stick with eBay . I wish eBay had local marketplace

I had my account for years, posted an item and they sent me a message that they deleted my post. Contacted customer service asking for an explanation so it doesn’t happen again and their response was blocking my account.

I have had +$200 pending deposits for over a month now. And I’ve tried all the canned bot responses of adding a debit card, checking and routing, and doing different sources for each. Still, deposit pending. I’m convinced no human works at OfferUp anymore. It’s just the chatbot. I have no hopes of getting paid and hope they class action TF out of whoever created this garbage.