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Community Watch - How to Make a Great Report

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Hamish Trade Me staff - Community team
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We want to make sure everyone using Trade Me has a great experience when they buy or sell. Community Watch is the best way to notify us if a listing isn’t quite right. We have a specialist team who review the reports, and will take appropriate action behind the scenes. It's best to file one report per seller with all of the info in one report - if there are listings from different sellers, they can be reported separately. If you file multiple complaints on a listing, or on multiple listings from one seller, this can slow down our team from getting to your complaint.

In order for us to make the most of your complaint, we need as much information as possible. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

  1. Choosing the right complaint subject

    It’s important to let us know exactly what the issue is with the listing you’re reporting, so we know what to keep an eye out for. You can let us know if:

    • It shouldn’t be listed (or the listing should be withdrawn)
    • The way it's listed is incorrect
    • Someone’s using the Q&A inappropriately
    • The seller is trying to avoid paying the right fees
    • There are intellectual property concerns (counterfeit items, breach of trademark, etc.)
    • It’s a face mask that’s not in line with our mask policy

    If your complaint doesn’t neatly fit into the above, you can choose the ‘something else’ option. When you do this, it’s particularly important to include as much information as possible. 

  2. Give us all the details!

    Because we can’t all be industry experts about the 8 million listings on the site at any given time, we appreciate a helping hand from those who are. It’s important for us that you point out exactly where the issue is and why it’s a problem. Don’t be afraid to spell it out for us!

    For example, if a listing is in the wrong category, it’s really helpful to let us know which category it should be in.

    Or, if you think an item is a counterfeit product, don’t forget to add why you think that. Providing us with your source of information is a great way to do that. 

  3. Attach any supporting evidence

    Our team can only take action based on the evidence they can see. That’s why we need as much info from you as possible, regardless of which complaint subject you’ve chosen.

    Most of the time, the evidence will be in the listing itself. Sometimes though, it’s not.

    For example, if a car is listed on the site, and the seller has told you it’s been sold already. From our end, we have no way of telling the item isn’t up for grabs anymore – unless the seller mentions this in the description or Q&A themselves. If you’ve emailed or texted them, include a screenshot of your conversation with them so we can see if they’ve said it’s no longer available.

Here are some examples of great reports

Example 1


This report has the right options selected, and gives further detail about what specifically isn’t right about the listing. Nice!

Example 2

This report specifies why this isn’t the right category for the item that’s listed. Ka pai!

Here are some examples of not so great reports

Example 1

This one needs a bit of love. This report doesn’t give any information about what’s wrong with the listing or seller. We can’t do anything with this one.

Example 2

This is a well-detailed report, but the seller has no links to contact them, it is listed in the right spot, and is selling their parts through the site. All is good!

Example 3


Without any information or reasons why the item listed could be counterfeit, we don't have a lot to go on with this report.

So with these points in mind...

Go forth, make some great reports, and help us to help you!
If you have any questions, post them below 

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