Swappa

Buyers beware there are some companies on swappa that are selling products that they don't actually have, all the while having a photos of a phone you think you are going to buy. They take your money from the purchase and have you wait weeks till they can get the actual phone. Swappa does nothing about this selling practice and has no support for the buyer except giving you a sorry for the inconvenience. I won't do business on swappa ever again and definitely won't recommend that anyone do so.

I have had both positive and negative experiences of buying products from Swappa. If the seller is honest then you have a good experience. I have had several such experiences. Most of the sellers do work with the buyer to make it a good transaction.
But, if the seller is not then you are pretty much on your own. I have had a few of that as well. In such cases, Swappa doesn't get involved in resolving the issue. They will direct you to PayPal to find a resolution. That process is tedious and time-consuming. Their resolution tends to be to find a way to void the sale. Sometimes it is possible but sometimes it is not. Tread with caution when buying from Swappa. Ask the seller all the questions.

To answer your question:
Ways you as a buyer can protect:
Make sure the seller posts pictures. Battery health is one example. One seller refused to post a picture but claimed all along that the health is good. It turned out to be false when I got the phone. The seller refused to cooperate to get the battery fixed. Swappa doesn't do anything in such situations to resolve the issue even though there is enough proof to show that the seller was dishonest. Swappa recommends resolving such issues via PayPal. Involving PayPal is a long drawn out process and their decision is usually to return the device back to the seller and void the sale.

Another issue I had was with the screen. The touchscreen was not working. The seller claimed that it is working and there was no issue. Thankfully, the seller was good enough to take it back and refund the money.

What I always do is to take the Apple devices to an Apple store and have them do a free courtesy check. That has always been very helpful. Both the above issues were identified through Apple's courtesy check.

First phone I ordered from an individual. It had been switched to a prepaid phone and wouldn't switch back to Sprint so I returned it. However, since it worked (albeit not on Sprint network which it was advertised as working on) I had to pay return shipping and the cost of original shipping was deducted from my refund. Second time I ordered from a company, the phone was the wrong model, I called and they promptly sent a new one and emailed me a prepaid postage label to return the phone. Phone #3 works perfectly.

My only gripe was the packaging, but that wasn't swappa's fault, overall I would shop on swappa again.

Trying to sell an iPad Pro 10.5 cellular on their, and they refused to let me put it under unlocked. All iPad Pro 10.5 models are automatically unlocked for any carrier. They can not come any way. Even with me explaining this to several of their people, they refused to put it there. They forced me to put it in a Verizon area because that is the sim card that Best buy sold it to me with saying it's a Verizon model, when it is not. I flat out told them I would not sell that device with them and will go elsewhere. May not sell anything with them again because of that.

I've had two satisfying transactions through Swappa and another not so much...
The bad experience involved a non-working device. The mostly hands-off approach from the Swappa staff was disappointing when I began to pursue a refund (that I'm still waiting for).
The good experiences left me feeling totally satisfied with the transaction. Fast shipping and products were as advertised.

Shipped right away, even during the shutdown, but used usps and shipping took 18 days. I was surprised the charger was not included. Should have read the fine print.

It was easy to use the app but we could not figure out how to arrange the payment - not sure if we're supposed to meet in person to exchange or mail but thanks for setting up communication!

I paid $355 for a black s6 edge. The company then emailed me stating they have sold out of phone and sent me a gold one. From order to delivery date was way too long and paying for something that I did not order upfront was nerve wrecking.

Swappa experience was ok, received phone in good order and promptly (Galaxy S6 Active). Bought phone in "New (resale)" condition in June, phone quit working in October. Now have to buy another...

I've had a number of great experiences with swappa as well as a number of terrible ones, overall its an okay site, However, they claim that they don't allow junk to be posted yet still there are numerous phones listed in "good" conditions with heavy screen burn, dots on the screens and heavy scratching and it gets frustrating when you're looking for a phone to purchase and when you click on phone listed in good condition you end up realizing that they all have screen burn, a dot on the lcd or heavy scratching to name a few. Perhaps y'all should create a new site specifically for those pretty much broken phones to be sold because its really not a good look for swappa.

After all still not certain when or how my product will arrive as everything seems to be in limbo as the language indicated not to mark the sale complete until delivered. The sale receipt did not indicate any shipping info so I marked it complete even without product in hand = "Delivered"? You said You got paid ok.
Waiting to see whats next.

Like all sites or stores, they are only a place for sellers to congregate and sell. So really its only as good as the sellers using it, and of course, the crooked sellers will take up residence. Anywhere you spend your money its a crap shoot. No site or store can weed them out completely. My experience with my seller so far has been great. So I had no opportunity to deal with the resolution team at Swappa. That's what both sites and stores should be judged on. Which I do. No matter how hard someone tries, you can't legislate morals.

I recently made my first purchase on swappa. I must say they have it together and can save u some serious money! I saved over $100 on my Galaxy S5 and it was in great condition when I recieved it. Shipping was free and fast! The description of the phone was so detailed and the phone matched to a T. Swappa is awsome and I'll definitely be doing some more shopping through them.

Very upset. Got what I tbought was a deal on a S5 phone in what was listed as a 32GB model that turned out to be improperly listed on Swappa.com but should have been listed as a 16GB model. Swappa rules and staff seriously need to require & or enforce pic posting prior to listing approval of label under battery with IMEI & or serial number blocked out. To prove your listing is as advertised.

Seller didn't ship within the 2 day window, apologized profusely, and gave me an SD card to make up for the delay. Item arrived *not* in mint condition, but was on the upper side of good, so I accepted it because I got a good price on it, and as long as it wasn't a complete mess, I still feel like I came out ahead.

So, customer had two of my particular phone, same listing, same specs, same description. I got the phone in the mail with factory looking tape on the box to make it 'appear new in box' as described in the listing. However the phone had a lock pin on it that required contacting him to unlock it. Obviously it was used. He said oh sorry for the mix up I have two of these. I'm thinking they aren't new, and he just sells them that way and puts factory tape on it. Probably forgot to do a factory reset before sending it out. Both listings were the same as "NIB" which is not true, think he just made a mistake and got caught with that. Nothing swappa can do since these are individual seller but sucks there would be no way to verify NIB. I love swappa though, bought about 5 devices so far.

Could be better. But... Shipping was fairly fast. Nice phone, just really slow phone to be a note two.

I bought an iphone 5S from here for a price of 135 bucks. The phone arrived on time and was physically as described in terms of dents and cracks. But after couple of days, I realized the microphones were not working so it wasn't recording my voice on videos, which is a problem although not very major as to render the phone completely useless it matters. When i contacted the seller they offered a reimbursement of 25 bucks for the repair. I don't know if it would have been enough cause i never got it fixed but if it wasn't enough I would have had to pay it out of my pocket since the protection plan (which is an extra 50 bucks and i think is pretty cool) does not cover pre-existing problems. I don't know if it happens often but ask about these details, because the buyer's excuse was that they don't check all the functions. Well, make them check it before you buy it, I am sure if I could have thought and asked about it they would be helpful enough to make a quick control.

Currently, swaps is not liable for anything like bogus seller, bogus buy or invalid feedback or invalid comments( some times they do better).
You are totally pushing PayPal liable for all the bogus and making easy business just like allaying eating sugar candy.

Not all your staffs are knowledgable and they mostly differ one with others buy making no appropriate comments about sale.

I know truth bitters but can't ignore in expressing it. Just as an example that you are allowing iPhone 6 Plus owner to sell his 6 plus as 6s plus without verifying it properly and in other occasion 16 GB phone was sold as 128 GB.

You need to held accountable for buyers and sellers dispute and you should hold the money until seller ships and close the sale or some thing like that.

My questions were not answered but it was a Holliday weekend.

I am extremely satisfied with the purchase. It was exactly as describe and all functionality work... very fast delivery... would highly recommend.

It had been a long time since I bought something with PayPal when I went to buy a new phone on Shappa. I updated my credit card info and billing address as prompted by PayPal, but didn't know that PayPal also stored another address called a primary address and I was not prompted to update that one. When you buy something on Shappa, you don't have the option to enter a shipping address. That comes from PayPal, and PayPal gave the Shappa website an old address as my shipping address. There's no way to fix this on the website, and Shappa customer service wouldn't help me change it either. They told me to work it out with the seller, which I tried to do, but he mailed the device to the wrong address before he checked the emails I sent him 3 days prior. I had to run all over town from post office to post office trying to intercept the package before it got delivered to the wrong address. Just make sure you are very familiar with your PayPal account and you know that all of the different addresses stored in your profile are current. If PayPal shares the wrong address with Shappa, you're at the mercy of the seller to get it shipped to the right address, because Shappa will not help you correct it.