Mercari Sucks (dot com)
I really liked Mercari at first – but that changed very fast. A seller sent me the wrong item, starting a chain of events that quickly opened up a window into Mercari’s darker side (expiring “Mercari credits” instead of refunds when sellers send you the wrong item, no ability to leave negative feedback in some cases means some seller ratings are likely too high, the “Buyer Protection” fee bought me nothing when I needed buyer protection, diversionary tactics and stone-walling by Mercari “customer support”, etc.). The amount of money I lost was a pittance, but I’m glad to have learned what Mercari is really like before a more serious problem arose – and I’m posting this information online because I found Mercari’s rigid and apathetic attitude (as shown by its deeds, not its flowery words) towards my patronage, my inquiries, and my money to be absolutely awful.
I’m no web designer, so expect this website to be basic and ugly. The oldest information is at the bottom and a few links are pinned at the top.
BEFORE CONSIDERING USING THE MERCARI PLATFORM:
Check out the Better Business Bureau complaints against them... there are LOTS and they just keep pouring in!
Read through Reddit discussions for an unvarnished perspective on what it’s like to use Mercari. There’s a lot of information on there, positive and negative, relevant and irrelevant; but taking a few minutes to skim through a few pages of discussions will start to give you a perspective on how Mercari actually treats its customers when those customers need help.
Mercari on Sitejabber. Yes, it’s a lot of negativity... but it sure lines up with what I’ve experienced.
Read the terms of service carefully. Yes, it’s boring, but it matters! Reject binding arbitration right away if you open an account (the instructions are given in the terms of service).
Check out this Illinois law firm’s website for information about possible misuse of your facial-recognition data, and think twice before providing personal data to Mercari!
May 21, 2025: Call-recording hypocrisy.
This evening I called Mercari to follow up on an email thread in which I just notified them of the filing of a complaint with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (who today confirmed receipt of my complaint and has forwarded it to Mercari for a response) – I’d received no reply from Mercari after this, so I thought a call was in order.
Before I reached an agent, their phone system told me the call would be recorded; so when the agent finally answered, I also said the call was being recorded and then began my inquiry – but the agent interrupted me to say she couldn’t continue if I was recording, and hung up! So I called again, ended up with a different agent, and said the same thing; and that agent put me on hold for a bit, and eventually came back and said I “wasn’t allowed” to record the call – when I pointed out that Mercari was recording so why shouldn’t I, and they were violating a federal regulation so it was important that they speak with me, I got dumped into some black-hole in the phone system where the hold music never ended.
I called back two more times, but each time, I was told that the wait time was in excess of ten minutes and was hung up on before ever reaching a real person.
May 20, 2025: The federal regulation that Mercari is breaking.
It’s called the federal Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule. Here is the FTC’s summary for consumers, which clearly states that actual refunds, not credits, are required to be issued. Here is the full text of the federal regulation.
May 19, 2025: The complaint I just filed with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.
Mercari, an online marketplace, is adamant about only issuing a store credit (expiring 90 days from issuance!) after I was shipped a completely different item than the one I ordered, and has been absolutely unwilling to set up a return of the incorrect item and the issuance of a refund to the original payment method.
I bought a used Apple Airport Express (item ID m54124484116) through Mercari's online marketplace, paying a total of $10.31. But I was instead sent a USB charger (somewhat similar in appearance to what I'd ordered, but functionally completely different). I reported this problem through the Mercari website (including taking and uploading many detailed photos of what I'd received, as their system requested) so that I could set up a return and get a refund. Instead, Mercari *instantly* (with no human evaluation of the information or photos I'd just been asked to upload) told me to keep the wrongly-sent item and said I had received $10.31 in "Mercari credits" which would expire in 90 days. Since the item I ordered was never sent to me, I expected to receive not an expiring credit but a full and prompt refund to the original payment method (as is required in accordance with the federal Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, which I just found out about today).
A long series of messages back and forth with Mercari customer support (see attached PDF) resulted in absolutely no progress, with Mercari consistently refusing to issue a refund. (Here's one sample response from them: "Please know that it's never our intention to put our special and valued community members like you in these circumstances. Since it was a low value item, our system automatically refunds the buyer in Mercari credits to save them the hassle of returning the item. I understand this is not the resolution that you wanted, but I request your understanding.")
I then filed a detailed complaint with the Better Business Bureau. A Mercari agent responded with only the following: "For returns under nominal price, Mercari will let the buyer keep the item and issue a credit to their account. I included our return and refund policy. https://www.mercari.com/us/help_center/topics/returns/policies/refunds-and-returns/ "
The Mercari policy referenced above says the following: "Returns under a nominal amount may be issued as an account credit instead of a refund to the original form of payment. In such cases, the buyer may not be required to ship the item back to the seller. Account credits issued will expire in 90 days after issuance." Beyond the ethical and legal issue of issuing a credit instead of a refund when the item I ordered was never even sent to me, there are two other serious problems here:
-- One problem is the word "nominal". I could not find any information about what dollar amount they consider "nominal", and it gives them wiggle room to apply this policy to whatever dollar amount they see fit, with no transparency whatsoever for their customers.
-- A second problem is the 90-day expiration of the account credit. Mercari could have applied the credit as an addition to my seller balance, in which case it wouldn't expire and I could either use it as credit towards new purchases or withdraw it to my bank account (although this option would not be available to people who have only been buyers and not sellers on Mercari). They also could have issued a credit that does not expire. Clearly they are acting only in their own self-interest by issuing expiring credits, as this forces consumers to "re-spend" the money only with Mercari (likely for an amount higher than the credit amount, in order to be able to fully use up the credit) while also generating "free" income from credits that expire after people forget to use them.
(I'd also pointed out to Mercari that they already hold deadbeat sellers accountable for the costs of transactions botched by the seller, so any small fee related to sending my money back to the original payment method should be covered by the seller as well -- they didn't respond to this.)
Also, I find it troubling and potentially fraudulent that Mercari charges a "Buyer Protection fee" for every item sold through its marketplace (for this item, the fee was $0.33) but then actively refused to provide me with the protection I'd supposedly paid for. Clicking an icon next to the fee brings up a pop-up that includes the promise "Get what you ordered or a refund upon eligibility" and has a link to their Buyer Protection Policy: https://www.mercari.com/us/help_center/article/235/ The Buyer Protection Policy says "If the item is not as described in the listing, you have 72 hours to let us know. Buyer Protection gives you a full refund for eligible returns" and "If your claim is approved, we'll provide you with a free return label to ship the item back to the seller. All returns must be shipped back within 3 days of Mercari claim approval to be eligible for a refund" -- which Mercari did not do. At the bottom of the Buyer Protection Policy page, there is a link to their Refunds and Return Policy; but there is no indication within the text of the Buyer Protection Policy that its contents might be overridden by parts of the Refunds and Return policy. I consider Mercari's charging me a mandatory fee for "Buyer Protection", and then not providing that protection, to be fraud.
One final concern (it may not be actionable, but I feel it important to mention): Mercari has a feedback system that allows buyers and sellers to rate each other. Leaving positive feedback is easy. However, for this transaction (and a prior transaction where a seller never shipped an item and I was finally able to cancel the order), Mercari did not allow me to leave any feedback at all! I specifically contacted Mercari to ask about this (as a feedback system that isn't available to use when a customer has a problem, is inherently misleading to potential buyers looking at a seller's feedback rating) -- and received a string of irrelevant responses and, eventually, apparent confirmation of my suspicion. I believe that Mercari has structured its feedback system in a way that is intentionally deceptive, meant to artificially inflate ratings so as to mislead consumers into trusting sellers even when those sellers have acted poorly during past transactions that require returns.
While I found other people grumbling online about being issued unwanted "Mercari credits" instead of receiving a refund, I didn't see any evidence that anyone had brought Mercari's troubling practices to the attention of the legal system. While the amount of money involved in my particular case is small, what is most important is that Mercari be required to follow the law so that they do not continue to profit by taking advantage of consumers who may not seek out information about their legal rights and who and may feel helpless in the face of stubborn Mercari agents and a credit-expiration deadline.
I have uploaded several documents; please let me know if any further information would be useful and I will provide it. Thank you very much for your assistance!
May 18, 2025: My Mercari story.
(TL;DR: Mercari steadfastly refuses to issue refunds back to the original payment method for items under an unspecified dollar amount if you don’t receive what you ordered; and their feedback system does not allow wronged buyers to leave any feedback at all in some cases, making sellers’ feedback ratings untrustworthy.)
After getting annoyed with all the clutter on eBay’s item pages, I started looking around for a cleaner alternative, and found Mercari. Much more straightforward to use – quicker to browse, quicker to post, better fee structure (at least for now – they do have a history of messing with it and driving customers away). Oh, and silly cartoon mascots, yay... surely you can trust a company with silly cartoon mascots, right?
I set up an account and posted a few items – and they sold. Kept going and got great reviews due to my packing items well and shipping them fast. Posted lots more items.
Decided to buy a cable lock. Ordered one and waited... and waited... but the seller never shipped, so I canceled the transaction. I was unable to find a way to leave feedback, so the seller’s failure to fill my order had no impact on his feedback rating. Tried again buying from another seller, this time successfully; not exactly a great first buying experience, but I ended up with what I needed.
Decided to buy an old Apple AirPort Express (item ID m54124484116, in case anyone at Mercari cares, which at this point seems highly unlikely). Seller promptly shipped me a package containing an Apple USB-C charger. Sending a message to the seller about this resulted in no response. Filled out a complaint and was immediately told by the Mercari system that I could keep the item and would receive “Mercari credit” that would expire in 90 days. But, having picked up a similar item elsewhere by this point, I didn’t need any “Mercari credit”, and just wanted my money back. (Hey, bad sellers have to pick up the tab already – surely they can also get billed for whatever small fee the financial network charges to send my refund, right?) And once again, there was no way to leave negative feedback about the bad experience... I started to suspect that the Mercari feedback system is designed in such a way that buyers can easily be lulled into a false sense of security. Those silly cartoon mascots are perhaps not quite as innocent as they appear to be.
Every attempt to discuss this problem with Mercari (including telling them that I’d suspended all 34 of my current listings and they now stood to lose far more per month in fees than they’d make by illicitly keeping my money) has been met with the same refusal to budge. I’d even made sure to mention that I’d take my complaint public, and apparently they didn’t care; so here I am, the proud new owner of mercarisucks.com – the domain registration fee of which will be covered by the refund I’ll get when I file a charge-back with my bank, which is increasingly appearing to be the only avenue left to me that doesn’t involve financially rewarding Mercari for their customer-hostile policies. Mercari has known full-well that they’re gonna give up that money one way or the other, and they chose the option that makes them a lot less money and also damages their reputation. Not a good sign.
The more I’ve dug around online, the more unsavory things I’ve discovered about using Mercari than I would have expected to find at the beginning. This website can serve as a place to post links to those. For now, though, I’d like to point out that the devil is very much in the details:
Mercari accounts don’t expire. Accumulated seller funds don’t expire. Why should a buyer’s “Mercari credit” on a seller-botched transaction, expire? I have a suspicion that the side-effect of padding Mercari’s bottom line is at the heart of this policy: either you use the “Mercari credit” with them – probably spending a bit more money on top to use it up fully – or, if you neglect (out of either principle or forgetfulness) to give them more business after such an episode, they’ll just keep all your money and give you nothing for it. If the “credit” didn’t expire, I’d probably have acquiesced – but this expiration crap just doesn’t pass the sniff test.
I’ve been told repeatedly that I get to keep the item that was shipped to me... but, um, I don’t want it. (If I’d ordered a laptop and someone had shipped me a brick in a box instead, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mercari were to tell me that I should be grateful to have received a lovely cornerstone for a new house.)
Mercari’s terms of service mention that they may issue “Mercari credit” for transactions under a nominal amount – with no specification of that actual amount, anywhere that I’ve looked. Get stiffed for a $50 item? Is that a “nominal” amount? Who knows, Mercari won’t tell you and they may hang onto your money even if you’ve bought a replacement elsewhere and don’t want to risk trying to buy something else through them.
You pay a “Buyer Protection fee” on every Mercari item, described in the informational pop-up as “Get what you ordered or a refund upon eligibility.” That last word is the devil here, as Mercari gets to determine what’s “eligible” and it clearly does not mean what you would reasonably expect it to mean. Hey, Mercari: are you at least going to refund the “Buyer Protection fee”, or is this just a protection racket?
I know that some folks will say I’m wasting my time because this is all over a relatively small amount of money. But the bigger picture is that a business you can’t trust with the little stuff, definitely can’t be trusted with the bigger stuff. Without a “mea culpa, a refund has been sent to your bank” message from Mercari, there’s no way in hell I’d use them again.
What has Mercari gained from this? A small wad of my cash (at least for the moment, until the charge-back hits).
What has Mercari lost from this? An excellent new seller who would have continued to make them more money every single month than the single wad of cash they’ve stolen from me. And perhaps a little bit of public trust, which as we all know is far easier to lose than to regain.