Carousell

I recently opened an account mainly for selling used stuffs on carousell. Carousell is a great app to let go of preloved items and even sell new stuffs. Unfortunately selling on carousell has been quite an uninteresting experience due to buyers who despite sellers mentioning no bargaining/fixed price, still try to ask for lower price. Things sold on carousell are already cheap! So cheap! Sellers cant even get profits from it. Plus buyers eventhough I have a few times asked them to rate me (a feature that would let you give seller a good - smiley / bad - sad emoji) they have all failed to do so. This doesnt help other people in the carousell community to learn which sellers/buyers are good/honest so that they can choose who to deal with (which is difficult to do when dealing online). If u want to sell on carousell, do know what kind of market place u are entering, most people buying there are cheap skates. For me its just a place to get rid of stuffs for more space rather than gaining profits if unless u are using it as a platform for an already established shop/online shop.

I purchased an iPhone 7 128GB RED from the Australian based user 'heyitsfaby'. Carousell had VERIFIED this user. Money was transferred directly into the bank account of the user, however the product has never been recieved. Not long after the money was transferred the account was been suspended. This was A SCAM.

I tried to get into contact with Carousell, sending them dozens of emails about this situation. Not only have Carousell, failed to reply, they continue to VERIFY users who are fraudulent, and create vicious scams.

My situation is not uncommon. This has happened to thousands of young online shoppers in the past year and it is unacceptable. Carousell need to have stricter guidelines and policies in place that protect consumers. At the moment it is a mere fact sheet about how to beware of dodgy dealers which fails to be both enforceable and effective.

AVOID carousell at all costs. Stick to ebay or amazon or other online shopping sites that have measures in place to protect customers.

I am a subscriber of their pro business account service. However when I emailed in to enquire about the absence of a feature (which allows you to disable carousell's protection for payment mode) that all other subscriber seem to enjoy, I was met with incredulously incoherent responses from their staff, Lay.

Over a period of two months since I raised my issue, Lay communicated the following:
1) Carousell's protection is default and cannot be disabled even though the option to do so is there
2) When evidence was provided to contradict point 1), he suggested the typical software fix which involves restarting your PC/phone or changing browsers. These did not help.
3) When I feedback about point 2), Lay went back to talk about point 1)
4) This went around in circles where the final straw came when Lay suggested I check with Apple store on this. WTH does Apple HAS TO DO WITH CAROUSELL'S ISSUE?
5) Feeling pissed off, I asked for a refund for the payment I have made for my subscription but was dump with a typical cut & paste wall of text which states that it is non-refundable.

Each nonsensical reply from Lay took 5 DAYS.

Now, you offered a service but did not manage to deliver it completely. And when the customer asks for a refund/partial refund, you said no. Does that make Carousell a sammer company by itself?

Pay for their service at your own risk.

If you're Singapore based this would be the perfect app. People local to Singapore get lots of followers and seem to do decently in selling and offloading their (used) items. If you're USA based or located in other Asian countries, you might have a much harder time selling. It might be months or even a year before you make your first sale. No commission though - so that's great. Not as many people know about Carousell (as proven by it's lack of presence on SiteJabber!), you won't get as many followers, and because there's no consumer protection (essentially, this is merely a site to facilitate buyers and sellers to deal amongst themselves - there's no return policy or buyer protection program), buyers are probably more weary of purchasing anything on this site. If you can do cash on delivery locally, it's probably a safer bet. Beware though - there are PLENTY of scammers on this site who will say they want to buy your goods, pretend to be in your locale, but end up being a scammer from distant foreign country. The telltale signs are if they ask for your bank account details, full name, home address, telephone number, and for some reason want to discuss matters with you off the Carousell chat system to skirt detection. Do not fall prey to these scammers. Carousell has suggested methods of trading goods - follow those.

I have much faith in this app, and hope it does wonders in the future. But until they up their game on customer service, include more categories (perhaps a wedding section heh?) and introduce buyer and seller protection, much like Tradesy perhaps, it's success will merely be limited to Singapore. Nice touch with the promotional features on Facebook and Instagram etc.

I have been selling on Carousell for at least 7 years, with 500+ positive reviews.

Even though Carousell is just a platform for buyers and sellers, hence the experience gotten from there from transactions depend on the users themselves.

BUT Carousell customer service is atrocious. Every time you contact them for help regarding a transaction or a user's behaviour, they copy-paste a default response that says their platform has no control over transaction experience, to just post a review etc. Or if you told them a user just left a terrible review for no reason whatsoever, that copy-paste default answer is the response.

Too many times the buyer themselves are scammers, buying your authentic item which they check on the spot, or you offer to go boutique with them to verify authenticity but they refuse, then leave the place. And then contact you days later to claim you sold a fake item.

These buyers most likely swapped out your authentic item for a fake, then demand refund for the fake, hence leaving them with the authentic item, PLUS your money. If you refuse to refund cos they checked long enough on the spot, or refuse to go boutique with you to verify authenticity, the buyer just leaves you bad review, or worst, make a police report over nonsense. What Carousell does? Default copy-paste answer. "Reviews are there to maintain integrity of platform" but the buyer themselves are cheating you!

My account is now restricted because of such a buyer, my years of building rep is gone because of that. Still waiting for Carousell response since a week ago. Submitted proof and all.

Those using this platform, don't get your hopes too high. It's basically you protecting yourself.

NOT JUST THE CUST SVC NEVER BOTHER (ONCE ONCE REPLY) BUT ONCE THEY TOTALLY CANT ANSWER MY TRUE FACTS THEY WILL KEEP MUM & IGNORE. I AM NOT GOING TO KEE QUIET ABIT MY ISSUE AS I HAVE NOT BREACH ANY LAWS FOR THEM TO HIDE ONE OF MY CHILDEN MASK LISTING. STUPID REASON THEY GAVE COZ GOT COMPLAINT FR OTHR SORE LOSER CAROUSELLER THAT I NEVER PUT A PRICE TAG! IT SHOWS TEAM CAROUSELL ALSO SORE LOSER AS SOME OF THE CAROUSELLER. I EVEN SCREENSHOT & POINT EVIDENCE THAT SOME CAROUSELER ALSO BREACH. IM NOT THE ONLY ONE NOT PUTTING PRICE!