Safety Tips

Selling safely and ethically:

• Make sure to follow social distancing and other public health guidelines and rules during any event of pandemic.
• Follow normal standards of social interaction with strangers.
• Don’t trust blindly.
• Behave professionally and according to the community guidelines.
• Make sure to inform the buyer of any defects, if any, in the item you are selling.
• Be clear on condition, usage, and specifications.
• Be fully transparent in communication. Remember you are not here to make friends, you are here to deal.
• Make sure there is intent to purchase before physically meeting with the buyer.
• Use general and safe payment methods that you trust and are familiar with such as cash, bank transfer, cheques, or digital financial intermediaries.
• If you were paid in cash, make sure to count it correctly before concluding a deal.
• Never share your personal data, confidential information, identity documents, and financial credentials digitally.
• Make sure to meet in a public place.
• Never meet after midnight or after official closing time of places.
• Don’t deal with parties who constantly change the meeting place or insist on meeting in private.
• Don’t deal in a close sphere or vehicle.

Buying safely and ethically:

• Always meet the seller at a safe, famous, and public location.
• Make sure to be an active community member and report any users immediately.
• Don’t trust sellers who have their items abroad and need money before shipping them.
• Don’t forget to inspect the item and test it if possible thoroughly before purchasing.
• Watch out for unrealistic offers or discounts. If it is too good to be true, it probably is.
• Avoid items that have suspiciously lower prices than what is offered in the market.
• Ads with unrealistic photos are often fake. Avoid it and report this ad.
• Look for goods that have a receipt, guarantee, warranty, certificate of authenticity, or other forms of product identification and paper trail.
• Don’t deal with buyers who insist on asking for your personal information such as your age, bank account, and other unnecessary information to the deal.
• Communicate solely on the product. Don’t drive away from the topic at hand.
• You are here to deal, not to make friends. Be professional and transparent in your offer.
• Never send an advance partial or full payment, or use a debit card to pay someone you do not know before collecting or making sure of your item.
• Remember, it is always recommended to purchase the items directly from the seller at a public place.

Added layers of security:

Never reveal your login credentials of your account to anyone. Fortify your security through your password, consisting of minimum 8 characters, including at least one digit. For safety reasons, we do not recommend storing the password in the browser. If you believe someone knows your password, change it without hesitation.

Common practices of fraud:

Be more careful if the price of the product is undervalued. Pay special attention if the seller avoids personal collection of the product with respect to your request on the site. Be careful when you are entering into an agreement with a user whose information is written in a way that seems like a template or automatically translated.

Steps when suspecting other users of fraud:

Please report the user and contact us if you suspect someone to be acting fraudulently on ASHAKO. We also urge you to notify the local Police immediately if you have been a victim of fraud. Don’t hesitate to notify us through support or contact form so that we can conduct the necessary investigation internally.