Is Selling on Letgo Safe? – A Look at The Dangers

Is selling on Letgo safe?

We have all heard the stories–people selling on Letgo end up getting robbed–shady transactions, etc.

But are these occurrences really all that common? Should you be worried about potentially getting taken advantage of when selling on the platform?

There is no doubt that negative experiences such as these are few and far in-between. After all, tens of millions of transactions happen over the Letgo app on a monthly basis.

Most people don’t get robbed–but some do–and in this short article we will be going over how to avoid this so it doesn’t happen to you!

Overview of Letgo

Letgo Is a second-hand selling app that is often said to be the newer version of Craigslist. If you know how Craigslist works then you know how Letgo works too. The purpose of both is to facilitate the buying and selling of products locally, where sellers make direct transactions with buyers.

Where Letgo beats Craigslist is with its usability, and technology to help your items sell faster. Not only does a handy little app make snapping photos of your items and listing them for sale an incredibly easy process, but the app also uses AI to help match buyers and sellers, which means that your items sell quicker than normal.

Some of the benefits include…

• Makes it easy to post items
• No transaction fees
• Don’t have to deal with shipping
• Easy communication with buyers

And some of the negatives are…

• Only for selling locally (limited market)
• Meeting directly with buyers adds layer of risk

Safety Concerns

This isn’t eBay where you ship items directly to the buyer and the platform handles the payment process, nor is it like Mercari, which is basically the same thing.

With Letgo you meet up directly with strangers to make your transaction. The upside to this is that, because the app plays no part in this, there is no fee–the downside is that meeting up with strangers adds a great deal of risk to the equation.

• Are you going to get robbed?
• Is this buyer going to give you conterfeit money?
• Is the buyer going to try to intimidate you to sell your item for less than you are willing?

These are all things that–unfortunately–could happen and that you should at the very least be aware of.

Luckily, Letgo is helping to ensure that these things don’t happen and there are some tips we will be providing for safer transactions.

How Is Letgo Helping Make Things More Safe?

The team at Letgo isn’t just sitting on the sidelines waiting for someone to have a bad experience. They’re getting in on the action and always testing new ways to make the platform more safe for both buyers and sellers.

In an interview with ABC News, a spokesperson for Letgo said that…

“We use human and artificial intelligence to moderate our marketplace and we ask our user community to flag anything or anyone that raises concerns in extremely rare cases where that’s necessary,”

Not only that, but Letgo’s rating and verification system has huge benefits when it comes to safety.

On the app users have the ability to verify their profile via Facebook, Google, and email–which helps to ensure that they are in fact a real person and can be held accountable for their actions on the platform–and users can also rate transactions between other users so that you can take a look at the reputation of buyers before selling to them.

Tips for Safer Transactions

1. Meet In Public

If at all possible you should meet in public to complete your transactions. You don’t really want to be giving out your address to strangers, so if you can avoid it that would be the best.

A public place with cameras is your best option. This includes places like gas stations, supermarket parking lots, and many police stations now have designated areas for meeting people for reasons like this.

However, if you were selling a large item like a refrigerator it might not be feasible to meet someone in public with it. If this is the case you were just going to have to be extra careful, and It would be advisable to follow the next to tip…

2. Bring Someone Along

If you want to add another layer of safety to your transaction, bring someone else along. Having someone with you that you can trust will always make a somewhat unsafe situation more safe–if that’s what it comes to.

3. Make a Phone Call

If you are alone and a bit nervous, you can always make a phone call when you’re going up to meet the buyer. Simply being on the phone with someone brings them along with you virtually–so that they know where you are if anything were to happen and can also hear if something takes a turn for the worse.

4. A Counterfeit Marker Could Be a Good Investment

When it comes to using counterfeit money, buying things on second-hand marketplaces like Craigslist and Letgo is a dream come true.

Yes, there are people that use counterfeit money to rip people off, and it only makes sense that they would be taking advantage of people selling on apps like Letgo.

Because of this a counterfeit marker may be a good investment. They are inexpensive and could give you peace of mind–in particular with large transactions.

5. Be Weary of Strange Messagess

Some of the stories you hear from people who have had negative experiences selling on Letgo often talk about having a gut feeling that something was not right to begin with. Often times the communication they have with the buyer through the app seems a bit strange and it doesn’t really add up.

Trust yourself–trust your gut. If you think you should avoid a particular buyer, then you may want to–especially if they have no ratings and no reviews from past transactions.

6. Keep Your Communication on The App

If someone asks for your phone number so that they can communicate with you, declined the request. If possible, keep all of your communication on the app. This way you have a nice record of the communication that went on between both parties–and so does Letgo.

Final Thoughts

While there will always be some risk involved when it comes to selling items to strangers, and this just comes with the territory, overall Letgo does a good job of helping to make buyer/seller transactions as safe as possible–much more so than Craigslist.

If you are still concerned you can always use Alternatives like eBay or Mercari, in which you will ship items directly to customers and the platform will handle the payment process–but of course shipping can be a pain and if you go this route you will then have a fee deducted from your payment.

What do you think? Is Letgo safe? What has your experience been like?

Is there any way for Letgo to make the platform even more safe?