The SafeList User Manual

1. Welcome to SafeList

SafeList is a marketplace where every sale is protected by escrow. When you buy something, your payment doesn't go to the seller directly — it's held by TradeSafe, an independent escrow provider, until you've confirmed the item arrived as described. If you're selling, the same protection works in your favour: once a buyer's payment clears, you know it's real and secured before you ship.

What makes a deal safe here

• Escrow-protected payments — funds sit with TradeSafe, not SafeList and not the seller, until you confirm delivery.
• KYC-verified members — look for the Email + KYC badge on a member's profile before you deal.
• Masked identities — you trade under an alias. Your real name and contact details are never shown to the other party; your delivery address is only shared with the seller after payment, purely so they can ship to you.
• Built-in dispute resolution — if a deal goes wrong, either side can raise a dispute and TradeSafe steps in.

2. Creating your account

Signing up and signing in

SafeList doesn't use passwords. You sign in with a magic link: enter your email address, and we send you a one-time sign-in link. The link is single-use and expires after 15 minutes. If your account has two-factor authentication turned on, you'll also be asked for a 6-digit code from your authenticator app after clicking the link.

1. Go to Sign In and enter your email address.
2. Check your inbox for the sign-in link and click it (or paste it into your browser).
3. If prompted, enter your 6-digit authentication code.
4. You're in — the same account works for both buying and selling.

Verifying your identity (KYC)

Before you can buy or sell freely, verify your identity from your account's KYC page: upload a photo of your ID document and a proof of address. An Admin reviews submissions and approves or rejects them — you'll be notified either way. Once approved, your profile carries the Email + KYC badge that other members look for.

3. Browsing and buying

Finding what you want

Use the search bar or browse by category from the Home page. Listings can be filtered by category and area. Sellers can mark a listing as Urgent for faster-turnaround sales, and can pay to Boost a listing for extra visibility — both are called out clearly on the listing itself.

Making an offer

Every listing supports negotiation. From a listing's page you can:

• Buy at the listed price — goes straight to checkout.
• Make an offer — the seller can accept, decline, or send back a counter-offer.
• Respond to a counter-offer — accept it, or walk away. Every offer is tracked under My Offers.

Once an offer is accepted (by either side), that price becomes the checkout price — it isn't renegotiated afterward.

4. Wanted ads

Can't find what you're after? Post a Wanted ad describing it instead, and let other members come to you with what they have.

Posting a Wanted ad

Create it the same way as any listing, choosing the Wanted category. Give it a clear title and description of what you're looking for. There's no price, photo, or seller onboarding required to post one — you're not selling anything yet — but you can optionally add:

• A budget range (either side alone is fine — "R1,000+", "Up to R1,500", or both) to give people responding a sense of what you're willing to pay. It's a guide, not a hard limit; a genuine offer may reasonably come in above or below it.
• A delivery preference — which courier method(s) you'll accept, if a bulky item genuinely only suits one (e.g. Door-to-Door). Leave it blank to accept any method; self-arranged/hand delivery is always an option regardless of what you pick here.

Marking a Wanted ad Urgent works the same as any listing (faster-turnaround visibility), but note the cost lands differently here: it raises the commission taken from whoever's offer you eventually accept, not from you — the page shows the exact percentage change once you've entered a budget.

Responding with an offer

If you have an item that matches someone's Wanted ad, open it and choose Respond with an Offer. You'll describe the item, propose a price, and upload at least one photo of it. Since you'd be the one shipping it, you'll also choose a delivery method — only the method(s) the poster said they'd accept are offered, if they set a preference — and, for a courier method, your collection address.

Accept, decline, or counter

Once approved, the Wanted ad's poster reviews the offer under My Wanted Offers and can accept it, decline it, or send back a counter-offer at a different price — you can then accept or decline that counter. Accepting starts the same 24-hour payment window a normal offer does.

5. Checking out: address, delivery, and payment

Checkout has two short steps before payment. Payment is usually split into two separate transactions — the item price and the courier fee — though a SafeList Standard listing (see below) charges only the item price.

Step 1 — Address

Confirm the address the item should be delivered to. This is the only point at which your delivery address becomes visible to the seller — and only after payment actually clears.

Step 2 — Delivery method

Choose from whichever delivery methods the seller has enabled for that specific listing:

The four courier methods are each quoted with a real, live rate at checkout. If your chosen method involves a locker on your end, you'll pick a specific one from a searchable list; tap the i next to any locker to see its real size and weight limits before you commit.

Step 3 — Payment

1. Item price — always paid into TradeSafe's secure escrow.
2. Courier fee — for a courier method only, paid separately via PayFast, never part of the escrowed amount. A SafeList Standard listing has no second payment.

If you pay by instant EFT, card or Ozow the payment clears in seconds. A manual EFT can take a few hours (longer across banks) to land and clear — while it does, your order shows Payment pending. That's normal; nothing more is needed from you, and the seller is told to ship as soon as TradeSafe confirms the funds have cleared.

6. After you buy: tracking, inspection, and confirming receipt

Once payment has cleared (both payments, if there's a courier fee), the seller is notified and ships your item. For a courier method a real shipment is booked automatically and your order page shows the waybill number and a tracking link as soon as it's booked; for a SafeList Standard listing the seller ships it themselves and adds the tracking reference to your order afterwards.

Delivery and inspection windows

Every order carries the same two fixed windows: 7 days to deliver, and once it arrives, 3 days to inspect. Funds release to the seller automatically when the inspection window closes — this release is handled by TradeSafe, the escrow provider, on its own schedule.

If everything's fine, click Confirm Receipt on your order page. This lets the seller know you're happy and marks the order Delivered — it's a courtesy signal, not a payout trigger: the funds still release on the window above, and there's nothing more you need to do either way.

If something's wrong

Use Something's Wrong on your order page to open a dispute before the inspection window closes. This hands the order to TradeSafe's own resolution process instead of letting the automatic release go ahead.

7. Selling on SafeList

Before your first sale

Complete Seller Onboarding to add the bank details your payouts will be sent to. If you're selling as a registered business, also complete Business Verification.

Creating a listing

1. Go to Sell Something and add photos, a title, description, price, and category.
2. Choose how it ships: either tick which of the four courier methods you'll offer (door-based methods need a collection address, set once during Onboarding), or pick SafeList Standard and arrange delivery yourself. One or the other is required.
3. Optionally mark the listing Urgent.
4. Submit — new listings go through a brief moderation check before they go live.

Delivery windows are fixed platform-wide (7 days to deliver, 3 to inspect) — you don't set these per listing.

Shipping and getting paid

You can only mark an order as shipped once payment has cleared — both payments, if the buyer also paid a courier fee. For a courier method, clicking Mark as Shipped books the real shipment for you; for a SafeList Standard sale you ship it yourself and then add your waybill/tracking number and courier name to the order so the buyer can follow it. Funds release to you automatically when the buyer's 3-day inspection window closes — this is TradeSafe's own auto-release. If the buyer clicks Confirm Receipt sooner you'll be notified and the order shows Delivered, but the payout still follows that window.

8. Messaging, disputes, and penalties

Every order has its own private message thread between buyer and seller. If a thread needs staff attention, a moderator or admin may step in or temporarily pause it — you'll see a plain "paused for review" banner if that happens. Either party can raise a dispute on an order that isn't going as expected. If a seller can't fulfil an order, they can flag it for staff review rather than leave it stalled.

9. Boosting a listing

Sellers can pay to promote a listing for greater visibility — boosted listings appear in their own featured strip near the top of the Home page and in Browse results.

10. The Agent Referral Program

Anyone with a SafeList account can become an Agent and earn a commission share on sales made by the sellers they refer, at no extra cost to the buyer or seller. Register from the Become an Agent link to get your own Account Name. Agent levels are unlimited in depth, and there are four commission tiers — Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum — that you climb as the sellers you personally referred complete more sales.

11. Getting help

If something isn't covered here, raise a ticket from the Support tab. This manual is also always available from the ? icon on the Home page.