A home for how trust works on Whatnot
Today we’re launching the Whatnot Trust Centre, one place to learn about our work on trust and what we’re doing to keep Whatnot the best place to buy and sell.
Trust starts with our community. You show up live, stand behind what you sell, and build relationships with the people who buy from you. Buyers can see what they’re getting, ask questions, and make a call before they bid. And every day, you make the marketplace stronger by following our policies, reporting concerns, and telling us what’s working and what isn’t.
That’s the part everyone can see. The Trust Centre is where we show the rest.
Why now
A lot of this has been running in the background for years, and we've rarely stopped to explain it. Every seller is verified and screened before they can sell and ship. Buyers are backed by Whatnot Buyer Protection if something goes wrong. Specialised categories like luxury bags get an extra layer of review before anyone can list. Our systems watch for bad actors around the clock, and when we find them, we remove them.
That work protects buyers, and it protects you. When a buyer knows every seller has been verified and every purchase is backed, they bid with more confidence, and that confidence lands on the sellers doing it right. The Trust Centre is where we've put the whole picture in one place, so you can see what stands behind your shop.
Trust at this scale takes people and technology
Roughly one in three people at Whatnot works in Trust & Safety, our largest team. And every employee, whatever their role, buys on the app, goes live as a seller and helps out on support, so we know your experience from the inside. The systems run alongside them: most of the accounts we remove are caught before anyone reports them, and when a seller crosses the line, we remove them no matter how much they sell. In the past year we've removed sellers responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.
That reflects a choice we've made. Protecting the community that good sellers are building is worth more to us than any amount of sales from folks who break our rules.
This work is never finished
Trust isn't something we will ever finish. It's something we'll keep building, and keep talking about. The Trust Centre is where that work lives now, and we'll use it, and this blog, to keep you in the loop as we ship new protections, update policies, and share what we're seeing across the platform.
Some of the machinery stays behind the curtain, and that's deliberate: the more precisely we describe how our fraud detection works for example, the easier we make it for the people trying to beat it. And we rely on each of you to support this work. When you report a show, a listing, or a profile, you're helping to keep Whatnot the best place to sell and buy.
Take a look at the Trust Centre to see what stands behind your shop. And if you spot something that doesn't look right or think we've missed something, tell us at trustblog@whatnot.com.
