Payment & trading safety

Read this before you send money, send a card, or share personal details.

How CardTracker Marketplace works

CardTracker introduces buyers and sellers and shows you what a card is actually worth. That's all. We never hold your money, never handle the card, and cannot reverse, refund, or recover a payment. Every payment and every postage arrangement is strictly between you and the other person, exactly as it would be on Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree.

Payment methods, ranked

PayPal Goods & Services

Recommended

The only common option with real buyer protection. If the card never arrives, or arrives materially different to the listing, you can open a dispute and PayPal can refund you.

Never send a payment as "Friends & Family" to someone you don't know. It has no protection at all, and a seller insisting on it is the single most common scam signal there is.

Sellers: the fee is the cost of the buyer trusting you enough to buy. Build it into your price rather than pushing the buyer to an unprotected method.

Cash in person

Safe with care

Nothing to dispute because you both inspect and hand over at the same time. Best option for local, higher-value cards and for trades.

Meet somewhere public and busy, in daylight. A card shop, a shopping centre food court, or a local league night are all good. Many police stations offer a safe-exchange area. Bring someone with you for a high-value deal, and inspect the card properly before any money changes hands.

PayID

High risk

Instant, irreversible, and there is no dispute process whatsoever. Once it has left your account it is gone, and your bank almost certainly cannot claw it back.

Be aware of the "PayID upgrade" scam: a fake message claims your payment failed because the seller needs a "business account upgrade", and asks you to send more money to fix it. That is always a scam. No legitimate PayID transfer ever requires a top-up.

Only reasonable for a seller with a solid review history on here, or for low-value cards where you accept you could lose the money.

Bank transfer

High risk

Same problem as PayID: effectively irreversible, with no protection for the buyer. It is fine between people who already know and trust each other, and a poor choice for a first deal with a stranger.

Before you commit

Check their reviews. Every completed trade on here can be reviewed by both sides. A seller with no history is not necessarily bad, but they have not earned an irreversible payment yet, so use PayPal Goods & Services or meet in person.
Check the photos are really theirs. Sellers are asked to include a handwritten note showing their display name and the date in at least one photo. Recycled photos lifted from a completed eBay auction are how most card scams work. If the note is missing and the price looks too good, ask for a fresh photo with today's date.
Compare against the market price shown on every listing. A card priced far below market is sometimes a genuine bargain and sometimes bait.
Keep the conversation here. If something goes wrong, the message history is what our moderators can actually see when you report it. A deal arranged entirely over DMs somewhere else leaves us nothing to act on.

How reviews work

A review isn't unlocked just by messaging. Replying to each other is required before a review can happen at all, but it's not what unlocks one - the trade itself has to be marked completed.
Either of you can mark it completed once the card and payment have actually changed hands. A review unlocks for both of you as soon as the other side confirms too.
One-sided confirmation still unlocks a review after 14 days. If you mark it completed and the other side goes quiet, you can still leave a review once that window passes - an unresponsive counterparty can't block a legitimate one.
A listing that was pulled or expired without a recorded sale closes off that one-sided path, so waiting out the clock on a deal that never actually happened doesn't earn a review.

What to share, and what never to share

Expected and fine: your postal address, once you have agreed to a deal. The other person obviously needs it to send the card. Your first name, your general area, and a phone number if you are arranging a meet-up are all normal too.

Never share: your banking login or passwords, your card's full number or CVV, one-time passcodes from your bank, photos of your driver licence or passport, or remote-access to your device. No legitimate card buyer or seller needs any of these. Anyone asking is trying to rob you, no matter how plausible the reason sounds.

Posting a card

Sleeve the card, put it in a toploader or semi-rigid holder, tape it shut, and use a rigid or bubble-lined mailer. "Penny sleeve in a plain envelope" is how cards arrive bent.
Use tracked postage for anything you would be upset to lose, and add extra cover for high value. Tracking protects the seller as much as the buyer: it is the proof you sent it.
Photograph the card and the sealed, addressed package before you post it.
Send the tracking number through this conversation so there is a record of it.

If something goes wrong

Report the listing if it is fake, stolen-photo, misleading or inappropriate. Once enough separate users report the same listing it is hidden automatically and queued for a moderator.
Report the user from inside your conversation if they took payment and didn't deliver, were abusive, or tried to move you to an unprotected payment method. That goes straight to a moderator, who can ban the account.
Block them to stop any further contact.
Leave an honest review once the trade is marked completed. It is the main thing protecting the next person.
If you have actually lost money, contact your bank or PayPal immediately, and report it to Scamwatch and ReportCyber. CardTracker cannot recover funds for you.

Disclaimer

CardTracker provides a venue for collectors to find each other and a market-price reference. We are not a party to any transaction, we do not verify cards, sellers, buyers, payments or postage, and we do not act as an escrow or payment service. Market prices shown are estimates derived from observed sales data and are not a valuation, an appraisal or financial advice. To the maximum extent permitted by law, CardTracker accepts no responsibility or liability for any loss, damage, non-delivery, misrepresentation, counterfeit item, failed payment or dispute arising between users, and any dealing you enter into is entirely at your own risk. Nothing here limits any rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot lawfully be excluded. Moderation is best-effort and does not constitute a guarantee about any user or listing.