Our Approach

We have implemented different measures to build a robust and holistic Trust & Safety strategy — from the design of various features to keep the platform safe and trusted for all Carousellers, to mechanisms for removing infringements and preventing bad actors (not just in a passive reactive manner, but also using technology and data science to proactively detect bad actors). Finally, we also actively coordinate with external stakeholders to share best practices and exchange information to help us advance our safety efforts. Find out more below!

Features

• Ratings and Reviews

  Ratings and reviews help to build trust within the Carousell community. It is a tool to help guage the credibility of a Carouseller as it reflects their transactional experience with other members of the community. Our users are encouraged to provide an accurate representation of their transactional experience.

• Mobile verification

  All sellers have to verify their mobile number for their listings to be successfully listed on the marketplace. This gives our community more confidence in trusting one another, and helps to create a safer and more enjoyable marketplace. A phone-verified badge will be added onto the user’s profile once they have successfully verified their number, and this badge is visible to all on the marketplace.

• Carousell Protection

  Carousell Protection is an in-app payment feature that allows payment for items bought on Carousell, through supported payment methods. With Carousell Protection, money is safely held until the item is confirmed to be received as listed.

• Dispute Banners

  Dispute banners are surfaced in chat when users are dealing with another user that is under review or restricted. This helps to warn our users and serves as an additional tool to help guage the credibility of a Carouseller before entering a transaction with them.

• In-app educational prompts

  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, direct messages to users and social posts.

• Report a user or listing

  Our users play a very important role on the ground as our eyes and ears to monitor the integrity of the marketplace. We allow users to report other users or listings to us that violate our community guidelines. This culture where everyone, especially our community of users, feel empowered to own some part of Carousell’s Trust & Safety, is integral in helping us keep our platform a safe and pleasant marketplace for all. Note that reports are kept anonymous unless a direct follow-up from the reported is required.

Content Moderation

• Automated detection tools + Manual Moderators.

  We engage a third party service, an all-in-one integrated tool to detect fraud trends using their extensive network of fraud data and real time machine learning models. We also have a dedicated team of moderators to keep the platform healthy and safe.

• Community guidelines and policies to govern appropriate content and conduct.

  We provide users with a set of rules and guidelines to help everyone understand what it means and what we expect of those who are part of our Carousell community. These policies are transparent and public for all to read and abide by!

Collaborations and partnerships to share best practices and exchange information

• Government partners

  We actively collaborate with policymakers and authorities in all our major markets to share best practices, exchange information, and respond to law enforcement requests where appropriate.

• Brand Partners/Industry Experts

  To deal with counterfeit goods, we introduced the Carousell Rights Owners Programme (CROP). Under this anti-counterfeit programme, we partner trusted brands and give them the power to directly remove listings of counterfeits on Carousell with zero processing time. This has drastically reduced the time needed to takedown counterfeit listings, and allowed us to protect Carousellers from inadvertently purchasing counterfeit goods while at the same time protecting brands’ rights.

• Media

  We collaborate with various broadcast media and utilise a range of social media communication channels to provide tips on how to deal safely on Carousell, what to look out for and how to avoid suspicious accounts and high risk activities.