COVID-19: Keeping our community safe on Carousell
Updated 25 March 2020
1. General tips & advice
As a community, let’s fight COVID-19 together. We’re working with sellers to price surgical masks reasonably so everyone who needs a surgical mask can get it affordably.
- Maintain good personal hygiene
- Avoid crowded places and close contact with people who are unwell
- Use surgical masks if you’re feeling unwell to prevent the spread of germs to others
- Opt for mailing/delivery (with Carousell Protection for Singapore and Malaysia) instead of meet-ups
2. Profiteering of items related to public health
In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have reached out directly to our sellers, advising them to price their masks reasonably in order to allow a fair distribution of masks. We are rolling out measures progressively including advisories on Carousell News and curating collections of reasonably-priced items to keep our community protected. We are working closely with the relevant regulatory and enforcement agencies to review listings if needed. Listings with unreasonable pricing will be asked to observe corrective action or will be taken down. Our reasonable pricing threshold is based on the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) for the different markets we operate in.
Carousell is an open marketplace that doesn’t regulate prices for buying and selling, but in light of the escalating public health situation, we are stepping in to do our part to manage the situation by making sure that buyers who need masks can gain access to them fairly. We advise our users to abide by our community guidelines, and encourage our community to help one another, take care and exercise precaution.
I see overpriced surgical masks, hand sanitizers and related listings. What can I do?
If you see overpriced listings, you can report them as “Mispriced Listing” in the app. Our team of moderators are working round the clock and reviewing listings as they go up. Your report will help them get to these listings faster. Overpriced listings will be deleted.
Price guide for Malaysia, from the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society.
Price guide for the Philippines, from the Department of Health.
3. Dealing safely on Carousell
Here at Carousell, we take the safety of our community very seriously. We encourage users to be extra vigilant when shopping on any e-commerce platforms as scammers tend to be opportunistic and are taking advantage of people’s fear and panic during this time. Carousell works closely with local authorities, such as the Singapore Police Force (SPF), to tackle fraudulent users on the platform.
We strongly encourage users to use Carousell Protection when making any form of transactions on Carousell. Carousell Protection, previously known as CarouPay, is an escrow payment system which provides assurance to users by holding payment until a transaction is verified to be successful by both buyer and users. Carousell Protection is currently available in Singapore and Malaysia marketplaces.
As a community-focused marketplace, we actively educate our users, so that they can make more informed decisions in their transactions. We use multiple channels to reach our users, including in-chat prompts that advise users not to take their conversations out of the platform, as well as bite-sized safety tips for users, which we’ve amplified with a safety advisory issued in collaboration with SPF pinned as a banner on our home page, direct messages to users and social posts.
If you encounter anything suspicious, report it to us. We are grateful to have such an active community who flag suspicious listings or users to us. We will continue to work proactively with the authorities to improve the safety of our marketplace in order to minimise and counter fraudulent activities. Improving our product and technology is a never-ending effort, and Carousell will continue to dedicate our resources into ensuring that our users can buy and sell with peace of mind.
4. Prohibited items
Trust and safety is a top priority for Carousell. We take a serious view on prohibited items, such as medical devices, and this includes COVID-19 test kits. We are rolling out measures progressively and have dedicated teams in place to constantly review our marketplace for suspicious listings and review reports from the community. We are constantly improving our tools to keep Carousell secure to provide a safe and secure marketplace for our users to deal in.
If you come across any prohibited items, you can help us by reporting them to us in-app.