While most sellers trade with the best of intentions, there are instances of attempted fraud. We advise you to always close your business in person and on the spot.
Please observe the following guidelines:
Are you a victim of an internet scam? - Please report any attempted abuse by other community members. We advise you to report such cases to the authorities.
In most cases of fraud comes one of the following criteria:
Do not transfer money in advance. Most of the time, fraudsters ask for payment in advance. Personal payment is the safest way to trade for sellers and consumers, because fraudsters don't ship the goods after you've made the payment. Trust your instinct. Don't be shy about backing out of an offer. To place an advertisement, the seller have to register on startupmarketplace.us. Therefore, you have some data about your trading partner. And use our payment processor for any purchase. (Here's an example of a known scam: You write to the seller and show interest in the product. Receive a confidential email with a resolution proposal. You receive an email again in which the seller explains why cash payment is not possible. You will be asked to make the transfer in advance. The seller in turn sends the alleged goods. Although you have made a payment, you will never receive the product.)
Do not ship your product. This way you will prevent the most common methods of fraud. Personal payment when picking up the product is the most secure way of trading for both the seller and the buyer while using our payment processor. Do not accept payment by check. They are mostly fake and can later prove to be invalid. Banks take no responsibility and will not return your money. If this is required of you, it is usually a fraud. Fraudsters send fake evidence of funds paid. Emails in other languages usually come from scammers. (Here is an example of a known scam: You receive an email, in which you receive an offer price including shipping costs. You receive a fake e-mail confirming that a payment has been made, probably from a bank or you receive a fake check, or a higher amount than agreed and you are asked to return the difference. Then you will be asked, for example, to send the product. The check and receipt are showing as invalid. Most of the time, the product and the refund amount are lost before the fraud is discovered)
Our highest task is to protect you from fraud. For this purpose, we have set up a system for recognizing fraud attempts, with the help of which we can keep the large number of fraudulent ads away from our site, which is constantly renewed. A whole team of associates checks new advertisements and reacts to your submissions. For this purpose, we also count on the help of our users: Please report suspicious or fraudulent content! For that purpose, there is a link for registration on every advertisement page and in every e-mail. On each advertisement page you can find a link to our safety guidelines with important information and warnings on this topic. Also, as soon as the user receives or sends a request through our system, we give him important instructions, for example not to transfer money in advance and trade locally. Of course, startupmarketplace.us also cooperates closely with the authorities in the investigation procedure.