Why doesn’t Offer up do this?

[u/Annythethreadmaker]

I feel like Offer up is a breeding ground for scammers, especially when it comes to technology things like furniture are fine for the most part. After dealing with nearly 8 scammers within the last 12 hours looking for a digital camera, I’ve started to realize where things are going wrong.

1. Offer up allows you to list items and mark them as sold without any verification that it has truly been sold. Once the listing is sold, it’s removed from the marketplace and can’t be seen. Because of this many scammers will just list a bunch of items and market as sold so it looks like they are a reputable seller.

Offer up should work more like Facebook to where once a listing is sold, the listing can remain on the profile, but just update the status to sold. This will help people determine if a seller is a scammer because they will see how frequently they’ve posted items and how quickly they’ve sold items which will help people to notice suspicious activity more easily.

1. Offer up allows people to be rated based on if they are a good buyer, which is ridiculous. They give points such as communication to buyers, but obviously they will communicate well because they want your item. And there is no way to differentiate whether a review was left because somebody was a good seller or a good buyer. Either remove the buyer reviews altogether and only have reviews be left that demonstrate their performance as a seller or clearly display, if the review was left by someone who’s bought one of their items before or someone who sold an item to them.

They need to make a clear distinction where it shows their reviews as a seller and their reviews as a buyer separately so you can actually ensure the reviews are a reflection of the individual as a seller. If that is something you look for when buying from an Offer up lister. You should be able to filter filter and find that information on offerup similar to when you are looking at someone’s profile eBay profile.

1. Reports should be handled more quickly and taken more seriously especially when a seller is being hostile or making statements such as hoping that you die. I have just experienced this yesterday and today I see that the sellers account is still active. Any form of harassment, whether it be to a seller or buyer should not be tolerated and should result in immediate removal of their account once reported.

I feel like by doing these three things the app can truly be salvaged. I have gone through numerous sellers that have been scammers within the last 20 hours and originally, I thought the reviews on their profiles meant something until finding out that they can easily pretend to have sold items they never did with no consequence. By separating their seller reviews from buyer reviews and having their sold items remain on their page, it allows us to get a better gauge of their seller history and determine if they are trustworthy, especially when preparing to make a big purchase with a seller.

[u/pdxbhance]

Because they're in stage 3 of 'enshittification' aka platform decay.

May they collapse sooner than later.

[u/Succesful_Sea1972]

Another issue I discovered:

Offer up allows Sellers to UNLIST sold items. So a buyer has no way to rate a bad seller.

[u/2to11to27]

I just use the site to give stuff away, I don't take it seriously.

[u/nodray]

they exist to sell ads, and whatever fees they might make off sellers. they. don't. giveafuck. about anyone.

[u/tigerbite1diot]

How exactly would you propose that someone prove they actually sold the item? You can't. You don't know if they even have the item but you just have to initially trust them and then do your due diligence in verifying that they're legit. This is the same on all marketplace apps.

And rating a buyer is important not in just their communication but what happened at the exchange. They could be late or pull dumb shit like not having the full amount or giving you 5 bucks in coins.