# Buying and selling safely

> Short, boring, and worth reading once. Most of what goes wrong here is one of five things.

Last updated 18 August 2026.

## The rules that prevent almost everything

- **Meet in public, in daylight.** A supermarket car park, a café, or the "safe exchange zone" many police stations now provide.
- **Bring someone**, or tell someone exactly where you are going and when you expect to be back.
- **Deal locally and in person.** If you cannot see the item and hand over payment at the same moment, you are relying on a stranger's honesty.
- **Cash, or an instant payment you make once you have the item in your hands.** Not before.
- **Trust the feeling.** If something is off, leave. There will be another sofa.

## For large or immovable items

Furniture and appliances have to be seen where they are. If someone is coming to your home, or you are going to theirs: agree a time, bring a second person, keep the transaction to the doorway or the driveway where you can, and do not give a stranger a tour of your house because they asked.

Your listing shows an approximate area, not an address. Do not put your address in the listing text; give it in the relay once you have agreed a time.

## The five scams you will actually meet

1. **Overpayment.** A buyer "accidentally" sends too much and asks for the difference back. The original payment is reversed later; the refund is not. Never refund an overpayment. Cancel the sale.
2. **Fake escrow or shipping service.** A link to an official-looking service that will "hold the funds". It is a website they made. We have no escrow, no shipping partner, and no protection programme, and any message claiming otherwise is a lie.
3. **Gift cards, wire transfer, or crypto.** These are irreversible by design, which is exactly why a scammer wants them. No legitimate local buyer needs one.
4. **The remote buyer with a courier.** "My agent/driver/mover will collect it, I'll pay in advance." The advance payment is fraudulent and reverses after the item is gone.
5. **Verification codes.** Someone asks you to read them a code you just received "to prove you're real". You are handing over an account. Never read a code to anyone.

## Contact details and the relay

Messages go through a relay so neither side has to publish an email address or a phone number. We remove contact details from listing bodies and from the opening messages of a thread. If a stranger's first move is to push you onto another app, treat it as a warning sign. It is how most of these scams open, because off-platform there is no record of what was agreed.

## If your listing was posted by an agent

- **Read what it published before you share the link.** Software writes a good listing and occasionally writes a wrong price. You are the poster of record either way.
- **Check the location.** If your agent runs in a datacenter, a location we guessed from its connection is the datacenter, not your house. Fix it from the management link.
- **Keep the management link.** It is the only way to edit or delete the listing, and it cannot be recovered.
- **Do not paste the management link into a group chat**, a shared document, or a tool you would not give a password to. Anyone with it can delete the listing and read your messages.

## Reporting

Every listing has a report link and it needs no account. Three separate reports remove a listing from search automatically.

For anything dangerous, involving a weapon, involving a child, or involving a threat: contact your local emergency services first, and then write to abuse@curb.sale with the listing URL. We cooperate with lawful requests from law enforcement.

We do not mediate disputes, recover money, or arbitrate who was right about a scratch on a table. We are a noticeboard, and this is the trade you make for one that needs no account.

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