VarageSale

This is just too high school drama queenish for me. Mean girls in real life.

Elitist. Micromanaging Karen's. Wow

I admin for 2 communities, so I get rules, but this chick is insane!
She goes by the name of LeeAnn yet when you click her profile to find her on FB she is nowhere to be found. (This is for Southern Ontario.)
Anyway, I have ads for second hand furniture up in the furniture section. Seems sensible, yes? No, not according to her. She told me that because she knows I refinish furniture for a living, I can't post my second hand furniture in the furniture section (even though there is zero mention of my business in the ads,) and can only post 1 ad in the small business section. Um... Ok... I sent her photos of other ads from people and said, "How do you know these french doors were not originally a light stain and the owner has restained them, is now selling them and is, therefore, making money?" That would be a business. Just because you know what I do for a living, is no reason to ban my posts. Unless... she's also a furniture refinisher and doesn't want the competition? She has now banned a handful of people that I know of - alllll furniture refinishers. She either failed the police academy and gets her jollies being an insane admin, or she's a furniture artists who knows she sucks and doesn't want the competition around. Either way, it's a dying platform. Lyst is much better!

VarageSale is mismanaged by every admin in Spring Hill Tennessee the admins do nothing to the sellers who break the rules, you can get cussed at, stole from and items sold from underneath you VarageSale admins do absolutely nothing to protect you as a buyer or a seller. There is never a consequence for breaking the rules there is never a consequence for cussing someone out, there is never a consequence for not picking up an item there is never a consequence for not showing up to a meet there are no consequences! You can do an act however you please anyway you please anytime you please. This site is the most stressful, the worst, the most complicated and the absolute most hated website I have ever been on I cannot wait to get the hell off of this website and never return and never have anything to do with VarageSale ever again in my life. The admin should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the buyers to be treated the way that they are, they should be downright ashamed of themselves. It makes the buyer want to go confront the seller for treating them the way that they are and the way that they do.

04/2018: I am still finding VS to be a great platform for buying and selling. While reading the other reviews I observe that the low ratings seem to revolve around bad experiences with sellers rather than the APP itself. There is no real way to control human behavior (My experience is that members do get revoked if needed). The Tech support is like no other. You can't contact other platforms and get "real people" assistance like you do from this APP.

I find the messaging feature to be great -- messages cannot be "shared" screenshot and passed on yes, but that can be said for any messaging system (FB, email, etc.)
As for people buying and re-selling, I don't understand the problem - you sold it, got what you wanted for it now the item belongs to someone else to do as they please.
11/2017: I find VS to be a very organized way to buy and sell.
I love that it is pretty much kept local. Please don't let a few negative reviews keep you from trying it. I read through several of the reviews here. I have found that if you treat VS as a garage sale things run pretty smooth. ALWAYS - inspect items before turning over cash, follow the community specific rules, and treat others the way you expect to be treated. You cannot blame the Admins for poor ethics on the part of a buyer or seller. Admins seem to do the best they can at enforcing rules. Communities I belong to encourage reporting issues. They are recorded and if a trend develops the member risks membership privileges. One, even two reports does not constitute a trend. If something seems fraudulent or illegal, report to local authorities then notify Admin with copy of paperwork. If convicted there are more grounds for revocation.

They want your information, and if you don't adhere to their rules then you can't be a part of the community. You can't even view their listings. Other local sell sites like Letgo, despite being trash, let's you opt-out of your data being collected and sold. In this app, they want your real name, real face, and if you opt out of your data being collected, it logs you out because you can't use the app unless you give them your information. It wouldn't be suspicious for the real name being needed if it weren't for that fact. What makes them think they can compete against other sites that allow people of any community to sell to others, when they won't even let you in to sell to a community you're not even that far away from? It's even worst if you're in a small community. The rules are so strict, and verification takes too long. The admins think they're more important than they really are.

And don't trust some of the 5 star reviews. Notice how most of their account were all made in August, and how the reviews were all made on August 30th or 31st. Fairly suspicious if you ask me.

There is an insane admin named LeeAnn Matthews, who controls 90% of the communities within 2 hours of my location who is completely insane! She does not allow people who refinish/upcycled furniture to post that furniture in the REFURBISHED/UPCYCLED FURNITURE section. LOL! Why have that section then?
She if she knows you refinish for a living then you can have ONE ad in the small business section, stating that you sell refinished furniture, but NOT selling it in the ad. If you then post a discussion post, letting your followers know that you were asked to delete your posts but can be found in the small business section, she deletes that discussion post and threatens to remove you from the communities. Basically, all your followers or people who were watching your items think you fell off the map and disappeared. (No one checks the small business section!)
Funny thing is, no one can find her on Face Book or anywhere else on the web and her profile has no info. All the artists she has removed are thinking it's a fake account and she's actually a jealous, crappy furniture painter who just wants to eliminate all the competition.
LeeAnn Matthews - thanks for taking food out of my family's mouth and making rent that much more difficult to make each month!

Areas of the province within 15 kms of each other are grouped into "communities".
Once logged in, you can't search all of them - just whichever community you happen to have selected, and/or be a member of.
You have to "apply to join", and have your membership approved by an Admin before you can even respond to ads. Part of the approval process is using your REAL NAME - displayed to everyone - AND uploading A PHOTO OF YOURSELF. Forget the fact that you just verified your identity via phone and email.
Also, if you don't live within the cachement area of a specific community, chances are your membership will be turned down. (I own this thing called a "car" that I guess VarageSale hasn't heard of.) Moreover, the admin asking me for a photo didn't live in the community I was trying to join!
If you manage to make it through the rigorous vetting process, even your communications with the sellers about posted items - via "discussions" rather than private messages - require an approval process.

All of these approvals take days. I could have shipped an item from overseas in the time it took me to get approved, and to have my communications approved.
It's a wonder any buyers and sellers manage to connect or sell anything!

I feel as if all of these hoops were designed to collect information from the unsuspecting public; why it's so easy to find something on VarageSale when doing a random Google search, or when not logged in... but once logged in, it's nothing but bureaucratic nonsense. That the ads themselves are fabricated, or months/years old, and used as bait to get people to sign up.
I read a few of the reviews here - and someone mentioned that they couldn't get their account deleted. Probably so that they can continue to use your information in perpetuity.

We live in Regina, Saskatchewan, CANADA, supposedly a nation of democracy and freedoms. One of us had written a small book with pet stories. The other was a retired gardener who used his grandparent's scythe to cut hay on their farm AND, therefore, bought a new one in 2012 to keep weeds down on a small property. VarageSale, Regina, was used in September to post an ad to sell the book and scythe and other items. Some sold and some did not. VarageSale irritated us with their insistence that we remove a notation that we would deliver items locally. We were also astounded that the 'administrator', a 'Lynn Hall', wanted us to remove a cell phone contact number, which we provided for text communications. We dealt with the latter but were never asked to remove our comments about our delivery option (for an additional cost that was made clear in the ads). We sold perhaps five items via this site and Kijiji. We pulled the ads for about 10 days and returned to post them at both VarageSale and Kijiji... We were just starting to get responses from our VarageSale postings when Ms. Hall appeared to tell us that she had 'removed' the 'scythe ad' as 'inappropriate', not allowed by Varage 'rules'. Moments later, she reappeared telling Flo that her book ad was being pulled 'because she was an author' and, under VarageSale's 'rules', authors are 'small business'. Flo would not be allowed to post her book where she felt appropriate. Instead, Ms. Hall would tell us where a 'book ad' would need to go. AND, while Kijiji had no such rules, we were NOT to post our cell phone number (removing the Varage 'middle man', seemingly) OR to offer delivery for an additional cost. Don then challenged Ms. Hall on her knowledge of what a scythe is and why a gardening tool CANNOT be sold at this site... seems like Ms. Hall equates the scythe to a symbol of communism or... possible beheadings? Sheesh, we would be more worried about getting ran down by a power mower going full bore. Ms. Hall's response was rapid and as stupid... we did not want to abide by their rules so she was 'terminating the account'. Furthermore, she snarled, VarageSale would 'not tolerate threats or inappropriate language'! Which means what? That criticism of stupid behaviour is NOT allowed on this planet anymore? Seems like this is becoming the stupid trend for a world full of stupid people... Review written by Don MacAlpine and reviewed by Flo Shaw before it is posted... (Two old farts who are, evidently, VERY dangerous people!)

* is racist, and act like she is hitler on VS. VS brand don't need an administrator thAt dictate every second that this post is wrong catergorie, you should change location, when I am 30 min away and I have a car, I never have complaints, yet she is the only complaining, when she never even buys stuff from me. I don't go to VS, just so I have a headeach from this girl, i can't believe she revoke me of my right. And she is very disrespectful. She knows she got the power, so she is talking to you like so bossy like very disrespectful, almost like she feels obligé to talk down to you cuz she is the administrator. She is worst the worst thing I ever encounter. No ethical to talk to customer, that uses VS just to get a bit of money. She is crazy, I never had other administrator doing that to me. It's only*. Please replace her. Geez I would like her to know how it feel to revoke for no apparent reason. She is very confrontational too, like passive aggressive way. I love VS, I hate that girl tho! She is there 24/7 monitoring the place!

*Personal information redacted by admin