Is Poshmark Legit? Here’s 6 tips to avoid losing money

Is Poshmark Legit? Here’s 6 tips to avoid losing money

Poshmark is a user to user online marketplace with a focus on fashion and style.

Sellers set up a “closet” that buyers can browse and purchase items from.

When an item is purchased, Poshmark accepts the payment, issues a shipping label to the seller, and the seller drops the item in the mail.

The buyer has three days to inspect the item and return it if it does not match the listing description.

Poshmark offers a money-back guarantee, two-day shipping, and a free authentication service on items over $500.

Is Poshmark legit?

Poshmark was founded in 2011 and went public in 2021. Their Nasdaq symbol is POSH.

It’s estimated that the company has 32 million active users.

It’s a legitimate company.

Is Poshmark safe to use?

That is a harder question to answer.

People are people. With Poshmark being a user to user marketplace, sometimes you are going to run into super helpful, trustworthy, people… and sometimes you’ll run into incompetent people and/or outright scammers.

Though it’s no guarantee that you’ll have a positive experience with a particular seller or buyer, Poshmark does offer a profile for each user that indicates how much experience and activity a user has on Poshmark.

In general, more experienced and responsive users would be safer bets.

When things go wrong

In addition to facilitating the transaction, Poshmark’s job is to step in if something goes wrong… and, according to some users, that’s where Poshmark fails.

Users have rated Poshmark 1.09 out of 5 stars at the Better Business Bureau (BBB), where there have been almost 3000 complaints filed over the last three years.

At publication time, most of the complaints deal with problems experienced between buyers and sellers and users frustrated with the responses from Poshmark.

Poshmark generally responds to the complaints on the BBB site and many users mark their complaints as resolved.

Over on Trustpilot, 2,727 users have given Poshmark a rating of 1.4 out of 5.

Like the BBB, most complaints concern Poshmark customer service, or lack of such.

Poshmark does not respond to complaints on Trustpilot.

While the number of complaints is relatively small compared to the number of active users, it’s still quite clear that some users walk away dissatisfied with Poshmark.

The key to having a positive experience rests in avoiding problems in the first place.

Tips for avoiding problems on Poshmark

Tip 1: For both buyers and sellers, communicate and make your payment transactions through Poshmark.

If you take your communication and transactions off of Poshmark and use email or another payment platform, you lose protections that Poshmark may have been able to provide.

Besides, being asked to complete a transaction on a platform other than the one it was initiated on, is a sign of a scam.

Tip 2: Users report that some sellers have inventory (a “closet”) on Poshmark even though the seller is no longer active. Buyers order, but never receive a response.

Users have also reported that Poshmark customer service often replies to reports of an item not matching the item description with you “should have asked more questions”.

Due to these two issues, we recommend always contacting a seller before purchasing an item and confirming 1) that the user is active and 2) the item’s details and condition.

Tip 3: When you contact them, be sure to look over the images carefully and ask about anything that doesn’t look right.

Don’t brush something off as just being “a bad picture” because you are excited that you found the item or the price. Ask.

Tip 4: Consider user profiles. A user with more experience and positive interactions with other users is much more likely provide a positive interaction with you..

Tip 5: Use a credit card with buyer protections over other means of payment.

Many credit cards offer protections to buyers that debit cards do not offer. Check your credit cards to find out what benefits are available.

Tip 6: If you do experience a problem and you are unable to resolve it through Poshmark customer service, file a complaint through the BBB.

As of publication time, Poshmark does respond to BBB complaints and most are marked as being resolved.


What’s your experience with Poshmark?

Leave your comments below!


Have A Question? Ask Jessica!

  • Jessica: Hi, I'm Jessica, the Consumer Press AI, can I help you with a consumer question?

Working... ...


Retrieved Start Time: 
Retrieved End Time: