Buying and selling safely on Marketplace and Gumtree

Most marketplace transactions are exactly what they look like. The ones that are not follow a small number of scripts, and once you know them they are obvious.

If you are buying

The item that is too cheap and cannot be viewed. A van, a caravan, a console, well under the going rate, and the seller is working away, or it is with a shipping company, or a relative is handling it. There is no item.

The deposit to hold it. There is no holding anything. Cash or a payment method with protection, at the moment you collect.

"Pay by bank transfer and I'll knock a bit off." A bank transfer has the weakest protection of any payment method. The discount is the fee you are being charged for giving up your recourse.

The wrong-amount overpayment. They send too much and ask for the difference back. The original payment is reversed later and you have sent real money.

If you are selling

The courier who needs paying first. A buyer arranges collection and asks you to pay the courier, to be reimbursed. There is no courier.

"I've sent the money, here's the screenshot." A screenshot is a picture. Check your actual account balance, on your banking app, before the item leaves your hands.

The code they need to verify you. This one is worth reading twice.

The code request, in detail

A buyer says they want to check you are a real seller, and that they will send a code you should read back to them.

That code is a verification code for one of your own accounts. They have entered your phone number into Google Voice, or WhatsApp, or a password reset, and the code that arrives is the thing standing between them and your account. Reading it out hands it over.

No genuine buyer ever needs a code sent to your phone. Not to verify you, not for safety, not for any reason. The request itself is the entire tell, and it is the most common account-takeover route on marketplaces.

Paying and getting paid

• In person, on collection, is safest. Cash, or a card payment you can both see complete.
• PayPal Goods and Services, not Friends and Family. Friends and Family has no buyer protection

and that is exactly why a scammer asks for it.

• A credit card for anything over £100 gives you the Fair Credit Billing Act and your card issuer's chargeback rules, which makes the card company

jointly liable.

• Bank transfer is last. If you must, know that [the UK reimbursement

rules](/learn/getting-money-back) may still cover you, and that claiming is a process you would rather not need.

Collecting or being collected from

Meet somewhere public and busy where you can. A supermarket car park in daylight works for most things. Tell someone where you are going. If a stranger is coming to your house, have someone there.

This is ordinary caution rather than fear, and it costs nothing.