Returns and refunds

Every item on findTreas is sold by an independent seller, and it is up to them to offer, accept or refuse returns. We run the marketplace. We do not own the goods, and we never hold, inspect or ship them, so there is no warehouse to send anything back to, and no marketplace-wide return period we could honestly promise.

This is not us avoiding responsibility. It is what buying from a person rather than a store means, and it is worth understanding before you buy rather than after.

Most of what is sold here is secondhand, one of a kind, and described by the person who owns it. The condition on a listing is a statement by the seller that you are entitled to rely on. If what arrives does not match it, the rest of this page explains what to do.

Every listing shows its seller’s returns policy, under the seller’s name, and their shop page shows it too. Read it before you buy.

Not every seller has written one. If they have not, the listing says they have not stated a policy, which means only that, not that they refuse returns. Message them from the listing and ask whether they take returns, for how long, and who pays for return shipping. Their answer stays in your messages, which is where you will want it if something goes wrong.

If the seller has not said anything either way, assume the sale is final unless the item is not as described. That is never final, and it is what the rest of this page is about.

First, it helps to know that we are probably still holding the money. A seller is not paid when you pay. We pay them a week after we know the item arrived. So during most of the time a problem is likely to show up, fixing it costs the seller nothing but the sale, and you are not waiting for us to get money back from anybody.

Follow these steps in order. Most problems are solved at the first step.

1. Tell the seller. Message them from the order. Photos help. Most sellers would rather fix a problem than have a dispute on their record, and they can refund you directly, in full or in part. A partial refund for an item with an undisclosed fault is a normal outcome, not an awkward one.
2. Open a dispute. If they do not respond, or you cannot agree, there is a dispute button on the order itself. You can dispute any order you have paid for, and the seller is not paid while the dispute is open.
3. The seller has 7 days. They can refund you in full or in part, from the money we are holding. They can respond and decline, and we tell you what they said. Or they can say nothing, and on the 7th day you are refunded automatically.

Understand what that last step does, because it covers less than it may sound like. It guarantees that a seller cannot take your money and ignore you. It does not guarantee you win a disagreement. If they respond and decline, that is the end of it, and we do not weigh their account of the item against yours. We never saw the item.

We can return your money, remove a listing and stop somebody buying or selling here. We cannot make a seller take an item back, and we are not a bank, an insurer or a court. The money we hold is on its way to the seller, not set aside for you.

How we decide a dispute explains the whole timeline, including what happens when a seller says you have the item and you disagree. You will never be asked to send something back at your own expense before you can be refunded.

• The item, the shipping and the sales tax on them. A refunded sale is treated as a sale that did not happen, and the tax was never ours or the seller’s to keep.
• Refunds can be partial. A seller can refund part of it, the usual answer when an item is mostly right but not as described.
• The one-time identity-check fee is not refunded. If your order included it, it paid for a check that has already been done, and you stay verified for as long as you have an account. It is charged once, ever, not once per order.

Money goes back the way it came, to the card or account you paid with. How quickly it shows up depends on your bank, not on us.

Check the item before you hand over any money. That is the main advantage of picking up in person, and it is worth taking a minute.

Some listings here are ones we advertise but do not sell. On those, no payment passes through findTreas at all. You pay the seller directly. You cannot get a refund through us, because there is no order and no money ever passed through us, and no dispute process either. Anything you agree on is between the two of you, so agree on it before you hand anything over. Those listings say so on the page before you ask for the seller’s details.

Write your policy once, in your store settings, and it appears on your shop page and on every listing you have. Sellers who state a return period tend to sell more, not less. Leaving it blank does not look like a refusal. It is one more thing a buyer has to ask about before deciding.

You can refund a buyer yourself, in full or in part, from the order page, and while we are still holding the payment it costs you nothing but the sale. The money had not reached you, so there is nothing to take back and nothing to owe. The same is true of a refund we make during that time. Once you have been paid, that changes. We can still return a buyer’s money and recover it from you, and whatever your balance does not cover becomes a debt that hides your listings until it is paid. The seller agreement explains this.

Describing faults accurately is the cheapest way to avoid returns. Nearly every dispute here starts with something the listing did not mention.

findTreas LLC, 53 Verde Drive, Asheville, NC 28806. hello@findtreas.com. For a problem with a specific order, the dispute button on that order reaches us faster, with the order details included.