Let’s face it, we have all purchased shit that we ended up not using or barely using at all. These items end up in your closet, garage or wherever you hide them. The good thing is, someone out there might need what you no longer want. That’s why apps like OfferUp exist to help you get rid of stuff lying around gathering dust. You are probably having second thoughts on whether it's safe to use the app and that’s why you are going through OfferUp App reviews. Well, we’ve got all the good, the bad and the ugly in this OfferUp App review. So let’s get into it.
What is OfferUp?
OfferUp found at offerup.com is an app that assists people sell stuff they don’t want and buy stuff they need from neighbors and friends nearby. OfferUp was started in 2011 in Bellevue, Washington by co-founders Andreessen Horowitz and T. Rowe Price. According to Crunchbase.com, the start-up has since garnered funding from several capital venture companies including Jackson Square Ventures.
How Does OfferUp App Work?
Buying
Buying at OfferUp is pretty simple. Using your location information, the app displays available items near you. You can also use the app’s search tool to find specific items. Once you find your item of interest, you can make an offer straight away, or you can message the seller. When you agree on the price you arrange a meet and do business. You can set the distance you are willing to travel and the minimum and maximum price you are willing to offer.
Selling
If you want to sell items on OfferUp, just take a good photo of the item and say exactly what it is. Then, select a category (example, computer or phone), write a description of the item, set the price, post the item and wait for a potential buyer to contact you.
If you are selling a laptop, for example, you will have to state the condition of the item, as in whether you are selling it for parts, used (normal wear), open box, reconditioned, or new (never used). All these will show when a potential buyer views the item, so you might want to be as detailed as possible.
When a buyer contacts you, the next step is to set up a meet and transact.
Is OfferUp Free?
OfferUp is free for both sellers and buyers. You can either register through the desktop app, download the OfferUp app on Google’s PlayStore or iTunes if you are using an Apple device. Did you know you can get paid to download apps like this at Swagbucks.com.
OfferUp Seller Fees
Selling on OfferUp is completely free. However, you sellers have the option to bump their on ads on the platform and there is a fee associated with this. According to Offerup, the optional paid Bump feature sends a single item to the top of a buyers feed in the app. So that means more buyers will see it when they browse or search. It's the easiest way to get your item back in the spotlight and find a buyer fast. You can read more about bump here.
How Do I Rate Sellers and Buyers on OfferUp?
You can rate your experience with a seller or buyer on OfferUp once you seal the deal. When you go back to the app to confirm that you bought or sold an item then you can use the app’s five-star rating system to give your two cents.
OfferUp App Features
Offers
Offerup app has a section called “offers”. You would place items there that you’d want to sell either cheaply or quickly.
Followers
When someone follows you on OfferUp, it means they are interested in the items you are posting and would want to see more of what you’ll put up for sale. It appears you can only see who is following you through the desktop app.
OfferUp Bump
Well as mentioned earlier, OfferUp is free to use. However, the ‘’Bump’’ feature sends your item to the top of the pile to make it easier to sell the item. To use Bump, there’s a ‘’promotion’’ tab under the photo of your posted items. Bump’s rates are as follows
- 3 days – $7.99
- 7 days – $12.99
- 14 days – $19.99
What Can’t I Sell on OfferUp?
You are probably wondering whether you can sell that porn collection your wife has been raising hell about. Well, sadly you can’t. Actually, you can’t sell items such as:
- Alcohol, tobacco and drugs
- Adult content or offensive items
- Animals and animal products
- Counterfeit and replica items
- Food, gift cards, intangible items
- Medicine
- Anything illegal
What We Like About OfferUp
You can buy and sell stuff you don’t need easily
If your garage is overflowing with stuff you don’t want, you can exchange them for things you actually need, and people close to you will see it. Better yet, you can do business with the app for free.
OfferUp App Complaints
Well, we promised you the poop on OfferUp, and we’ve got lots of it. So, while using OfferUp, here’s what you need to know listed below.
There are lots of scammers
According to people who’ve bought or sold on OfferUp, the chances of getting scammed are quite high, . People will sell you fake stuff, especially collectibles and rare items. You might want to confirm what you are buying before money exchanges hands.
You are on your own
Remember Vinted App, where they have a community, a tight vetting process and stuff? Well, there ain’t no communities on OfferUp. Literally anyone can be a user, so you you should be on guard.
“Did they just tell me to call 911?”
The customer service will not help you when the shit hits the fan. One user was asked to report a crime with the police after she bought a fake laptop through the app. Damn!
Negative BBB
At the time of writing this review, OfferUp’s rating with the Better Business Bureau is an F. No surprises over here!
You Better Bump It Up
Remember we mentioned the app is free to use. But that doesn't pay the bills. So the people at OfferUp will do just about anything to make money, including bundling out posts from sellers with sponsored items and ads. So, don’t expect your shit to sell as fast if you don’t use Bump.
You have to walk the mile to do business
If you decide to buy or sell stuff using OfferUp, you’ll have to move your ass to do business. Did you know you can make money at home using the Swagbucks.com app without moving a muscle? Well, now you do.
OfferUp App Alternatives
It totally makes sense to try out alternatives given all the complaints you’ve just read. There are apps like Vinted that take a shot at keeping scammers off. You can also check out Swagbucks.com which helps you earn free cash and rewards that you can use to buy whatever you want. This way you don't have to deal with getting fake stuff or dealing with the potential of shady sellers. Ebates.com is another great option that earns you cashback and provides you $10 just for signing up!
Is The Offer Up App Safe?
OfferUp might be free and all, but it may not be completely safe in terms of the sellers that are using the app. Unlike similar apps that vet people before inviting them in, OfferUp is open to anyone. You can easily get ripped off if you are not careful. There are no admins to verify users, so it’s a shot in the dark when using the app. The customer service is also pathetic, as they barely follow up on what’s going on. If you want to make money while shopping for stuff online, try Ebates.com and Swagbucks.com.
Well, that’s my opinion on OfferUp. Do you have yours? We would love to read your comments or questions in the comments section below.
Until next time
Eddy ‘’with a Y’’
OfferUp Review
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Our Overall Rating
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Support
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Quality
Summary
You are probably wondering whether it's safe to buy and sell stuff using the OfferUp App. Up until recently, the app was doing great and we couldn't have been happier. So what's going with the company at the moment? Read our OfferUp Review and find out!
It’s great to be kept up to date on so many new things that hit the internet. I am actually looking at getting rid of a few things that I could sell and some things that I just want to get rid of as we are remodeling our home.
It’s amazing how much “stuff” we store up over the years.
I appreciate the heads up on scammers. I just don’t understand why scammers are always to quick to get out there and take advantage of others. This app sounds like it could be good but we all need to keep aware of those that are out to take advantage of us. Thank you.
Well scammers exist because they’re always looking for ways to make money and get over without any real work. So it makes sense why they exist. lol But it sucks that they do. Thanks for chiming out.
Never heard of it, but it seems like a cool site. It looks like it would suit a tight knitted community. Neighborhoods that are close by and people can easily drive around and pick up certain products. However, with the safety rating not being so high and people should be aware of sellers, that may turn people off. Then again, that’s the risk of shopping with other consumers.
You’re welcome.
Interesting review of offer up. Thanks to your review people will now exactly know what they are getting into. It is a pity, isn’t it, that there will always be some that want to take advantage of others. Do you know if the owners of this app are trying to do something to improve safety? It is a sign on the wall though that their customer support is almost non-existent. Back to the garage-sales or Swagbucks!
You’re very welcome. I’m not really sure what the owners are doing to combat some of the things I laid out. I just know that folks are complaining about it.
I'll add to my "do not use" list
Great timing on the article. I’ve been looking to use an app such as OfferUp to declutter my house. We live in a small town in the mountains so “neighborhood” selling isn’t really an option. I’ve looked at OfferUp and Let It Go as well as a couple other similar apps but with where I live, I don’t think they are good fits. But it is good to know about the pitfalls of scammers–I would never have even thought about that! I guess I’m naive to these games people play. Didn’t even realize OfferUp has been around for so long, I thought these types of apps were more recent. Have you been impressed with any other company doing basically the same thing?
Yeah, it’s always important to research any of these things. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. I’ve reviewed other apps here you can look at.
Great timing on the article. I’ve been looking to use an app such as OfferUp to declutter my house. We live in a small town in the mountains so “neighborhood” selling isn’t really an option. I’ve looked at OfferUp and Let It Go as well as a couple other similar apps but with where I live, I don’t think they are good fits. But it is good to know about the pitfalls of scammers–I would never have even thought about that! I guess I’m naive to these games people play. Didn’t even realize OfferUp has been around for so long, I thought these types of apps were more recent.
I agree that apps like this all depend on where you live. So it may not be a good fit for everyone. And yes scammers are everywhere and they’ll take advantage of anything. Unfortunately that is the reality of our society.
Hey there! I found your review about offerup really helpful. I’ve tried offerup before and thankfully I didn’t get scammed buy the seller. I think offer up is a hit or miss app if you get unlucky you get scammed or lucky that you get the product you wanted. Now after I read your review about offerup I not use it anymore since it has a high chance of me getting scammed and I don’t want to get on that point. Thank you for sharing this information.
Hey John, thanks for sharing your experience. I’m happy you avoided being scammed by sellers with this app. I agree it can be hit or miss.
Still not even close to craigslist
I have good results with craigslist and lately with nextdoor. Zero success with offerup.
Craigslist has been around for over 20 years with next to no funding. Offerup has been blowing through almost 100 million and not much to show for. I guess Offerup is just another company to extract money from investors.
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Craigslist has been around longer and better known. So they have that advantage. But there are people that have good experiences with offer up as well. The reality is any marketplace will have it’s good and bad moments. It will vary from person to person. Either way thanks for sharing your experience. Clearly Craigslist is your place of choice. And thats great.
BAD BUSINESS WITH OFFERUP
I recently purchased a portable dishwasher on OfferUp. After paying for it with my debit card, I waited for it to be shipped to me. When I got the package, I was shocked to see that I had paid for a baseball cap!!!! There was no dishwasher in the box!!! Not even a toy one that would fit in.a doll house!!!!! This is very shady to me and I hope that a lot of consumers can get this message that I’m sending out. Do Not Buy From OfferUp, if you don’t want to get ripped off!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn that sucks. I would be pissed. Did you contact OfferUp about this?
OfferUp is Crap!!!
I used OfferUp shipping for the first time on Dec 23, 2018. My experiences with E bay and other sites lead me to keep a video diary of items I ship out, so I did this with my item on Offer Up. The buyer paid the fees so I printed the label and took my item to the post office. At the post office I had a camera person video start to finish. I turned on the laptop, this was the item, I moused around and typed on the keyboard, took some video of the case and outside of the item. Boxed it up and handed it to the post office worker all while the camera never leaving the box, start to finish. 3 days Offer Up contacts me saying the buyer is saying there is damage and wasn’t what was described and they would do an investigation. Another week passes by and they state they have completed the investigation and the buyer will return the item. Offer Up never contacted me for my side. I contacted Offer Up several times via email, there is no customer service number, they never reached out. Now I’m in another week after they email from them saying the buyer would return my item. Neither the buyer of Offer Up has reached out. Just to anyone wanting to try this service, please be aware they do not do a legitimate investigation, and do not communicate at all.
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Wow, that’s interesting. You would think they would want to hear both sides and ask your for evidence on your end. Thanks for sharing your experience. Good to know!
Offer up Offers NO Services for its customers.
Offer Up Offers no Services for its users or for businesses that could benefit it’s customers.
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Thanks for sharing your opinion.
Call "GARY" with 3 on your side "I DID!"
PLEASE CALL GARY WITH “3 ON YOUR SIDE” IN PHOENIX ARIZONA , if enough of us call “Gary” we can get this story put on the news and protect other people from getting ripped off by offer-up. FOLKS I NEED YOUR HELP – LETS FIGHT BACK TOGETHER AND SHOW OFFER-UP ” We ARE NOT POWERLESS CONSUMERS!!!!” If you have been wronged by offer-up like I have please I implore you to CALL YOUR LOCAL NEWS CHANNEL AND TELL THEM, “You have a NATIONAL STORY of a major app ripping people off in mass numbers.” Folks what offer-up is doing IS SCARY!!!!! if they are allowed to get away with this other apps will start to rip us off too WE MUST FIGHT BACK!!!!
TO OFFER-UP THIS IS “MIKE EASTON.” HELLO REMEMBER ME???
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This site allows rampant movie piracy and ignores their own policies.
I’ve reported on multiple occasions the criminals selling high profile current movies on USB sticks. I’m talking about dozens of ads doing this. Offerup’s own policies are being violated and they are completely ignoring this and allowing it to continue. Any site that willingly allows criminal activity to continue isn’t worth the time. I believe the site owners should be brought up on charges. I pay to rent movies from Apple and Amazon, and this site allows people to sell 50 at a time on USB for like 30 bucks a pop. If I was to try this the cops would come to my door and arrest me. How they allow it to go on without being busted is beyond me. The site should be shut down.
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Stolen goods?
I have been looking for a cheap iPhone to play around with. Not for use with a cellular carrier, but just to try writing an app for it.
I found lots of too-good-to-be-true offers on OfferUp.
Might some of them be stolen phones?
I do not want to take that chance.
There is a chance it could be stolen, a knock off or hopefully the real thing. It’s a risk you take with sites like this.
More on Stolen Phones
FYI, There is a free CTIA service at StolenPhoneChecker.org that will tell you if a phone’s identifier (IEMI or MEID or ESN) is from a stolen phone.
However, that is only useful if the phone has already been reported lost or stolen.
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Thanks for sharing. That’s good to know.
Beware!
I purchased a couch on offer up. It had damage but their ad said it was covered under a warranty and was going to be fixed before pickup. Then they had to have it moved right away as they were moving. Then they were supposed to give me the warranty to get it done. It took badgering to get the warranty only to find out once sold it was no longer covered. I never negotiated. Paid what they asked in good faith. The. When I asked Offerup for help, or just to change rating, since they lied in ad Offerup said there was nothing they could do. I could not even warn others before purchasing the other items they were selling. I was a trusting and honest person. Now I am not. Also when look on Offerup, even with the distance chart, I get ads from the other side of the US. I got screwed in my home town. I would never buy anything from across country!
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Thanks for sharing your experience. Unfortunately it seems like this is too common and offerup does little to address situations like this.
bad service
very bad service
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Offerup sells your info and other stuff beware!!
Read update at bottom::: I was a longtime seller!! Please read this very honest review from a seller with 992 5 star reviews!! I wish I didn’t have to give them even one star but you have to In order to write a review!Don’t waist your time with offer up the more people who stay away from it the better chance it has to being shut down!! OfferUp sells your phone number right after you sign up. I changed mine and nobody not even a family member had it and I didn’t make a call. I did sign up with offer up. It’s the only place I gave my number to and supposedly it’s very secure they don’t share your number?!, well bs! I got a call almost instantly from an out of country area code! These crooks need to be stopped. All they care about is getting new people to sign up with new phone numbers. Then they use the phone numbers and they have usually. They don’t care how many things you sell and they don’t care how good your feedback is. They will shut you down in ban you forcing you to change your phone number and come back so they can use your new number and sell it all over again which is how they make money people. These people are heartless unprofessional animals!! We need to stop them by not using their site. Maybe even sue them for people who are into that. I just want them gone. I had a couple with a 3 year old little girl come meet me paid me 600$ in counterfeit for my new in box Xbox one x and two other new items in boxes and took off after pulling a gun on me! I reported the incident to offer up and had a police report then you know what they did?!, they shut my account down and banned me, they didn’t even shut the persons fake account down who paid with fake money! Hence all they care about are new phone numbers to sell to whoever wants them. I will prove it you crooks!!!! Offerup sucks!!! ??????????????????????????????????????
Update::: whatever you do don’t use offerup pay or hold! Bad for sellers and buyers! Took over a month to get my 1000$ ! They keep it and let it accumulate a little interest then they give it to you finally lol. Please close your accounts and use letgo or market place from Facebook or anything but offerup. Protect your info by deactivating your account!
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Bad business practices
People should not be allowed to post things if they have no intentions of actually messaging people back. That’s poor business on offer ups part to let that happen. They should make people have to renew there adds after so long. If they don’t renew it then don’t show the add. I’ve went to make a offer on something then realized they posted it 7 months ago. So your obviously not going to get any response from the people. I try anyways, ,and what do you know. I don’t get a answer back. Shocking. No. So offer up has waisted my time. Time I spent looking, for something I’m never going to get a answer back on. I’m going to have to go to the play store and give a rating on one star for this reason. Your app is poorly designed. I know for sure that I’m not the only one who feels this way. You might want to think about changing some things about your app to make it better for the buyers. Craigslist makes you renew your add every 7 days, and for good reason. So people aren’t waisting time looking at something they will never actually get to buy. Thank you a very displeased offer up user.
Mindy
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You make some great points here Mindy. Hopefully they’re listening.
Definitely do not use this application. You will not get any where with offer up. When anyone scams you. They will not help you or report the scammer. I follow all instructions. I met the scammer at the police station parking lot, Unfortunately she sold me a Note 9 with a bad IMEI that belonged to a Samsung 6 edge. She changes her profile after taking my money. Offer op allowed it so she could scam more people!
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Thanks for sharing your experience. This seems to happen way too often with this app.
Trying to buy a car
I have tried to buy a car on offered up I knew it was to good to b true Who buys a Jeep Wrangler for $1000 And There was a car for $800 too But got the same story that there husband died and they were on medical in the military .. They said that eBay will send me an invoice to me and the car will b delivered to me and I can test drive it for 5 days if I don’t want That I will have to return it back to them and they will refund my money That’s too funny whose gonna pay for a car before test driving it These people doesnt need to b scamming folks like that . The funny thing is every car I was interested in I got the same story Lol
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If you wanna put in time and energy to build up an account and then get blocked and removed for no reason and never again get the chance to have your account back, OFFERUP is your platform to waste your time.
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Never again
I have never received such a rude email from a company. I am aware shipping is slow because of the pandemic that’s I was concerned about handling time. I contacted the seller pre purchase to inquire how long it would take before item would make it to the post office, the seller said would have there the next day, it took several and I was on a time crunch and the extra handling days had impact combined with slow shipping because of the pandemic.Due to the response I received that was my first and last purchase.
OfferUp Support (OfferUp Support)
Jun 11, 2020, 2:51:36 AM PDT
Hi there,
This is Joshua from OfferUp Support. I appreciate your feedback.
I am sorry I was not able to answer your question. The seller failed to send the item on the date you requested and we can no longer turn back time.
If you do not know how to move on, You may send a cancelation request to the seller if you are not satisfied with the seller’s service.
This issue can easily be avoided if you planned ahead of time. Delays are expected especially with the pandemic that is currently happening.
We thank you for using our app and hope that you have a great day today.
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OfferUp itself is a scam
Bought some earbuds from a seller in Houston. I live in Georgia, so she shipped them to me. They were defective, and she was very apologetic. She wanted to make things right, and we were trying to figure out how to get the OfferUp app to register for a return. The next thing I know OfferUp has locked me out of any messages that we had exchanged, and locked me out of any way to reach out to the seller or OfferUp for any further assistance. All over a $23 set of earbuds. The seller is still trying to reach out to me, but OfferUp has shut it down. What in the world????????
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Waste of time
Waste of time! All people do on here is low ball you when I clearly checked the not negotiable price button right next to the price!. It’s irritating! My three young kids have more respect and common Sense than half these adults do. Don’t waste your time!
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