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When a buyer pays, we hold the money. It's released to the seller when the buyer confirms the item arrived as described (or confirms a local pickup), or automatically once the hold runs out if no dispute has been opened; the next answer has the timings. If something goes wrong, the buyer opens a dispute and we review the evidence from both sides. Read the details on our buyer protection page.

For shipped orders, the payment is held until delivery is confirmed (by the carrier's scan, by the buyer or by our team), then released when the buyer confirms the item is as described, or automatically 14 days after delivery if no dispute has been opened. For local pickup, it releases when the pickup is confirmed (the seller enters the buyer's 6-digit code, or the buyer taps Confirm Pickup), or automatically 3 days after the scheduled pickup date unless a dispute has been opened.

If an item arrives damaged or is materially different from the listing, report it within 3 days of confirmed delivery. If it never arrives at all, report it any time before the 14-day auto-release closes. Open a dispute from your order page. That keeps the payment held while we look at it. We aim to review disputes within 48 hours.

Open a dispute from your order page within 3 days of delivery, before confirming receipt if you can. Photograph everything as it arrived, including the packaging, and keep the box until the dispute is resolved. Your payment stays held while we review both sides. If the claim is upheld we'll put it right, usually with a full refund from the held funds; depending on the case that may instead be a partial refund or a return to the seller. If the seller recorded the item's serial number before shipping (required for a graphics card over $1,000), a full refund for an item you send back is issued once the returned item is checked and matches that record. You're never left paying for an item that wasn't what the listing promised.

That depends on the seller. Every listing states its return policy: either "All sales final" or a return window of 7 or 14 days from delivery, saying who pays return shipping. You'll see it on the listing and again at checkout, before you pay. If the seller accepts returns, a Request a return button appears on your order inside the window. This is separate from buyer protection, which is unconditional: an item that never arrives, or arrives not as described, is covered whatever the return policy says.

For a change-of-mind return, the listing's stated policy says who pays. You see it before you buy, and "buyer pays" is the common default. A dispute is different: if we resolve a not-as-described claim with a return to the seller, the return arrangements are set as part of that resolution. A change-of-mind policy is never what decides a protection case.

On listings with offers enabled, you can propose a price instead of paying the asking price. You enter your delivery details and card just as you would at checkout, and your card is authorized for the full total (item, shipping and tax) but not charged. The seller has 48 hours to accept, counter or decline. If they accept, that authorization is collected and the item is yours; if they decline or don't respond, the hold is released (your bank may show it as pending for a few days). The seller can counter once with a price between your offer and theirs: that releases your hold too, and you have 48 hours to buy at their price at checkout, decline it, or make a new offer. An offer at or above a seller's auto-accept price is accepted on the spot, and you simply pay at your offer price. You can withdraw an offer any time before the seller responds, and you can make up to 5 offers on any one listing.

Yes: any time until the order is marked shipped (by the seller, or automatically at the carrier's first scan), from your order page, for a full refund. You don't need a reason and you don't have to wait out the seller. Once it's marked shipped, cancellation closes; from there it's the return policy or buyer protection, depending on what's wrong. A local-pickup order has no cancel button: if the meetup isn't going to happen, report a problem from your order page instead.

3 business days after payment by default. Business days are Monday to Friday, counted in US Eastern Time, and a sale made on a weekend counts from Monday. Sellers can state their own handling time on a listing (some offer next-business-day dispatch), and whatever they stated sets the ship-by shown on your order. You can cancel for a full refund any time until it's marked shipped, and if it still hasn't shipped 24 hours after the ship-by, you can open a dispute.

A label being created just means the seller printed it. The first real scan sometimes lags a drop-off by a day, and carriers occasionally miss intermediate scans entirely. If nothing has moved for a few days, message the seller for a status. Until the order is marked shipped (by the seller, or automatically at the carrier's first scan) you can cancel it for a full refund, and if there's still no scan 24 hours after the seller's ship-by (shown on your order), you can open a dispute. Once it's marked shipped, cancelling closes, but you can open a dispute from your order page if the parcel doesn't arrive. The payment is still held either way.

First, check the usual suspects: other doors, a mail room, neighbors, household members. Carriers sometimes scan “delivered” a few hours (occasionally a day) before the truck actually arrives, so give it until the end of the next day. Still nothing? Message the seller, then open a dispute from your order page before the 14-day auto-release closes. That keeps the payment held while we investigate with the carrier. Orders of $750.00+ require signature confirmation (a label bought through SiliconExchange adds it automatically; a seller using their own label must add it), so a high-value parcel shouldn't be left on a porch in the first place.

We issue most refunds right away: a cancellation, a return, or a dispute resolved in your favor is sent back to your original payment method within 1–3 business days. If the seller recorded the item's serial number before shipping (required for a graphics card over $1,000), a full refund for an item you send back is issued once the returned item is checked and matches that record. Banks then take their own time to post it. Refunds typically appear on your statement within 5–10 business days, depending on your card issuer.

State marketplace-facilitator laws require us to collect sales tax on orders shipped to states where we're registered, new or used, business seller or individual. The tax is calculated at checkout, shown as its own line, and goes to the state, not to the seller or to us. The full plain-English version is on our sales tax and 1099-K page.

Not yet. SiliconExchange is US-only at launch: US sellers, US buyers, US addresses. If we expand, it will be deliberate and announced, not quiet.

Local-pickup listings are paid for online like any order (never in cash), and the payment is held while you arrange a meetup through messages. The seller sets the pickup date on the order. At the exchange, the buyer inspects the item and, once satisfied, shares their 6-digit pickup code (shown on the buyer's order page) for the seller to enter on theirs, or taps Confirm Pickup. Either one releases the payment to the seller. If the pickup doesn't happen or the item isn't right, the buyer opens a dispute; otherwise payment releases automatically 3 days after the scheduled date. Meet somewhere public.

Listing items is free. When your item sells, we charge a seller fee of 7% + $0.40 on the first $3,750, then 3.5% on the amount above on the order total (item price + shipping). No listing fees, no monthly subscriptions, no hidden charges, and no separate payment-processing fee. Founding sellers pay 5% + $0.40 on the first $3,750, then 3.5% above for 6 months, locked in when their first listing goes live. The full schedule lives at /fees.

Funds are released to your connected Stripe account when the buyer releases the payment after delivery (for local pickup, when you enter their pickup code or they confirm the pickup), or automatically 14 days after delivery is confirmed (3 days after the scheduled date for local pickup) if no dispute has been opened. The transfer typically lands in your Stripe balance within 1–2 business days of release, and balances pay out to your bank weekly, every Monday.

On an ordinary sale, three deductions, all visible on your order page: the seller fee (see /fees), the cost of a shipping label if you bought one through the order page, and the shipping-protection premium if the listing elected it. Sales tax is never among them: tax is charged to the buyer on top and remitted by us, and your fee is computed without it. (Rare recovery cases, such as a carrier billing adjustment for a misdeclared package or a chargeback after payout, are governed by the Terms §4.4–4.6; carrier adjustments always come with notice and a way to dispute them.)

Create an account, then connect a bank account through Stripe from your dashboard. Stripe verifies your identity, and once approved you can publish listings.

Federal know-your-customer rules require identity verification for anyone receiving payments. Every US marketplace does this. Stripe (the payment processor behind Amazon and Shopify) collects your legal name, date of birth, address, and the last 4 of your SSN. It does not register you as a business, it doesn't affect your credit, and SiliconExchange never sees any of it.

Nothing you need to handle. A checkout that's started but never paid expires after about half an hour and the stock goes back on sale automatically. That includes an offer at or above your auto-accept price, which goes straight to checkout. An offer waiting on your answer can't go unpaid: the buyer's card was authorized when they made it, so accepting collects the payment on the spot. Fees are only ever charged on orders that actually pay.

You control offers per listing. Every offer waiting on your answer has already authorized the buyer's card for the full total, so it is backed by a payment. You have 48 hours to accept, counter or decline, and you can set an auto-accept price so offers at or above your number close themselves: those go straight to checkout, like a Buy Now. Accepting sells the item and collects the buyer's payment immediately; declining, or letting the offer expire, releases their hold. Countering, once per offer, with a price between theirs and yours releases it too and gives the buyer 48 hours to buy at your price at checkout; the listing stays on sale until they pay. While an offer is open, the listing's condition, terms, shipping protection, local pickup, title, description, photos, specs and video stay as the buyer saw them (the price and shipping cost can still change), so what they offered on is what they get. Everything after the sale (held payment, shipping, protection) is identical to a full-price sale.

Message the buyer immediately. Most people are fine with a day or two if you tell them before they have to ask. Your ship-by date (your stated handling time, or 3 business days by default) is shown on the order. The buyer can cancel any time until the order is marked shipped (by you, or by the carrier's first scan), 24 hours after your ship-by they can also open a dispute, and an order left unshipped for weeks is eventually refunded automatically. If you genuinely can't fulfill it, email support@siliconexchange.io and we'll cancel the order and refund the buyer in full. Repeated late shipments and cancellations are reviewed.

Yes, before you ship, through our team: email support@siliconexchange.io with the order and we'll cancel it, and the buyer receives a full refund automatically. It's the right move when something is genuinely wrong (item damaged in storage, listing error you can't honor). Cancellations are recorded on your account, so the better habit is keeping listings accurate and stock counts real.

Respond, inside the window. You have 48 hours from when the dispute opens (we send a reminder at 24 hours), and we don't decide while you can still answer. Say what you know, plainly, and point at your evidence: your proof-of-condition uploads and the purchase-time listing snapshot are the record the claim is judged against. A dispute handled honestly isn't a mark against you, whichever way it goes. The seller's side of the process is on seller protection.

Before you ship, you can attach photos, video, serial-number shots, and test results to the order itself: the Proof of condition section on your order page. The record freezes when you ship, which is exactly what makes it evidence: nothing can be added after the fact, by anyone. It's optional (except for a graphics card sold for more than $1,000, which needs a serial photo and a board photo before it ships), it takes two minutes, and for high-value hardware it's the difference between your word and your proof. Photograph the packed box too. See the packing guides.

Partly. While a listing still has stock it keeps selling, so its title, description and photos stay editable. What locks while an order is in progress are the terms that buyer purchased under: price, quantity and category until delivery, and condition, handling time, return policy, shipping protection and signature confirmation through delivery and any dispute. Once the last unit sells, the listing stands as the public record of what it sold for: its price, title, condition, category, photos and specs are frozen (the description isn't). To sell another, relist it as a new listing. Every order also carries a snapshot of the listing at purchase, so a buyer's claim is always judged against what they actually saw. Your later edits can't be used against you, and vice versa. One more lock: while an offer on the listing is open, its condition, terms, shipping protection, local pickup, title, description, photos, specs and video stay as that buyer saw them until the offer closes: you accept, counter or decline it, it expires, or the buyer withdraws it.

The short version of Terms §8: no stolen goods or altered serial numbers; nothing under a lien or unpaid financing; no counterfeits or hardware misrepresented as a different model or spec; no tampered manufacturer labels or authenticity markings; no engineering samples or unauthorized pre-release hardware; no standalone software keys, and no bundled licenses that can't legitimately transfer; nothing illegal, recalled, malware-carrying, or export-restricted. And list only hardware you physically have. A listing you can't actually ship becomes a cancelled order and a mark on your record. Spot something that breaks these rules? Use the Report this listing link on the listing page.

Sellers of binned CPUs can attach their own test results (SP scores, CPU Force scores, V/F data and stability test results) so overclockers can see what silicon quality they're buying. The results come from the seller; SiliconExchange doesn't test or verify them.

Only high-volume sellers receive a 1099-K (for the 2026 tax year, the federal threshold is more than $20,000 in sales and more than 200 transactions; a few states set lower thresholds for their own copy). Receiving one doesn't mean you owe tax on that amount. It reports gross, not profit, and most people selling their own used parts sell at a loss. Sales tax, meanwhile, is entirely ours to handle: it never touches your payout and is never part of your fee. Details and disclaimers on the sales tax and 1099-K page.

Sellers ship items directly to buyers and set their own shipping price (or offer free shipping or local pickup). After a sale, sellers can buy a discounted carrier label right on the order page, priced to the buyer's address, with optional shipping protection and signature confirmation, and the cost is simply deducted from the payout, no card needed. Sellers can also use their own label instead.

Tracking is wired into every order. Labels bought on SiliconExchange track automatically, and USPS, UPS or FedEx tracking numbers that sellers enter by hand are registered with the carrier too, so the order updates itself as the package moves: marked shipped on the first carrier scan and delivered on the delivery scan. With any other carrier, the buyer confirms delivery from their order page, or our team marks it delivered after looking into it. Either way, delivery is confirmed by the carrier's scan, by the buyer or by our team, never by the seller's word alone.

Three rules cover most of it: anti-static bag first, two inches of padding on every side, and the shake test before you seal (if you can hear it move, it isn't done). Then photograph the item and the packed box, and attach the photos to the order as proof of condition. The full guides (GPUs, complete builds, CPUs, motherboards, drives, PSUs) are at /guides.

Optional protection against loss, damage, or theft in transit, elected by the seller on the listing. The premium is shown wherever you elect it — on the listing form and again when buying a label — and is simply deducted from the seller's payout. The coverage is provided by a third party through our shipping partner, and its own terms govern what is and isn't covered (see Terms §4.5).

On every order of $750.00 or more. That's platform policy, not a choice: a label bought through SiliconExchange adds it automatically, and a seller shipping on their own label must add it themselves. Sellers can also require a signature on lower-value listings if they prefer. It protects both sides: no high-value package left on a porch, and a signed delivery record if anything is ever contested.

That's the single biggest scam signal there is. Don't do it, and report them. Every protection we offer (held payments, disputes, refunds) exists only for payments made through checkout; anyone steering you to Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, wire, crypto, or “PayPal Friends & Family” is removing your safety net on purpose. The patterns to know are on our trust and safety page.

Listings: the Report this listing link on any listing page (no account needed). Messages: the flag on the message itself in Messages. Use it for off-platform payment requests, and we keep a copy of the message even if the sender deletes it. An account: open their profile and use Report, which is the one to use for impersonation. Anything that fits none of those, or if you're signed out, goes through the contact form or straight to report@siliconexchange.io. Every report gets human review, and a false alarm costs nothing.

Check your account. Every real order, refund, and payment appears in your order history. If it isn't there, it didn't happen here, whatever the email says. We will never ask for your password, and we never take payment through a link in a message.