Terms of service

These terms cover using WhimSale as a buyer or a browser. If you are selling, the seller terms also apply, and where the two disagree about selling, those win.

What WhimSale is

WhimSale lists garage sales, estate sales and private collections in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, and lets you buy items from them before you show up. The seller owns the goods. We are not the seller, we have not inspected anything, and we do not hold stock.

We do handle the money. When you buy something, you are charged by WhimSale, and we pay the seller afterwards. That makes us responsible for the payment, the refund, and the record of both, but not for the condition of a lamp.

You must be 18

You need to be 18 or over to have an account, buy anything, or sell anything here.

Buying

1. You choose items and pay by card.
2. The seller sets those items aside for you. They are marked sold and taken out of the sale.
3. Most things here you pick up yourself. You pick a pickup time and receive a pickup code. Read it to the seller when you arrive; that is how the handover is recorded. Do not send it to anyone beforehand.
4. Where a seller has opted an item into shipping, you can choose delivery instead. You pay the shipping at checkout, the seller packs it, and the carrier delivers it to you.

Prices are set by sellers. There is no buyer fee. Where sales tax applies it is shown before you pay, never added afterwards.

You are buying secondhand goods, as they are

Almost everything here is used. Photographs and descriptions come from the seller, and some descriptions are drafted by an AI from the seller’s photographs before the seller reviews them. Look at the photographs.

If what you pick up is materially different from what was described, such as the wrong item, broken when the listing said working, or missing parts the listing claimed, do not accept it. Tell the seller at the handover and do not confirm the pickup code. See cancellations below.

Canceling, and refunds

You can cancel any order before you pick it up and get a full refund. No fee, no reason required, though we ask you to pick one so we can tell an ordinary change of mind from a seller who keeps letting people down.

Refunds go back to the card you paid with. Cards usually take five to ten days to show it.

Confirming the pickup code is not the end of it. We hold the seller’s money for 72 hours afterwards, and for that whole time the order can still be refunded in full or in part: it is there for the fault you only find once you get it home. The exact deadline is on your order, because a seller can be given a longer hold. Once the window closes the money goes to the seller and we can help you talk to them, but we cannot take back money that is no longer ours. Returns and refunds is the whole of it.

Meeting strangers

You are going to somebody’s house. We check nothing about sellers beyond their ability to be paid. Bring someone, go in daylight, and trust your instincts. If a place feels wrong, leave and cancel. You will be refunded in full. There is more of this on the safety page, and it is worth reading before your first pickup.

What you may not do

• Buy or sell anything on the prohibited items list.
• Use somebody else’s account, or give your pickup code to someone in order to claim goods you did not buy.
• Arrange to pay outside WhimSale for something listed on it, to avoid the fee. It removes every protection either side has.
• Scrape the site, or use it to harass anyone.

We can suspend an account for any of these.

Where we stand if something goes wrong

We are responsible for taking your payment correctly and refunding it when these terms say we should. We are not responsible for the quality, legality, safety or description of anything a seller lists, nor for what happens when you meet them.

Our liability to you is limited to the amount you paid through WhimSale for the order in question. Some states do not allow that limit; where that is true, it does not apply to you.

Ending it

Close your account whenever you like. We can close yours if you break these terms. Live orders get settled or refunded either way, so nobody loses money because an account closed.

The law that applies

Michigan law, and the courts of Kalamazoo County. Nothing here stops you using small claims court, and nothing here is an agreement to arbitrate.