About BuyorMeet
BuyorMeet is a local-marketplace platform building a safer alternative to Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace across the United States and Canada. Every transaction on the platform is backed by deposit-protected escrow — buyers reserve items with a refundable deposit, sellers don't hand over goods until both sides confirm the meetup, and disputes get mediated rather than ignored.
Why we built it
Local marketplaces are the largest source of pre-owned-goods commerce on the internet, and they have stayed fundamentally unchanged for two decades. Craigslist still looks like 2005. Facebook Marketplace requires surrendering your social graph to use it, and Meta explicitly disclaims responsibility for any pickup transaction. OfferUp and Kijiji solved a few of the UX problems but kept the "arrange the deal yourself, good luck" model intact.
Two patterns kept showing up in user feedback: people had been scammed (paid for a phone they never received, met a seller who never showed) and people had been ghosted (committed to driving across town for a "reserved" listing the seller sold to someone else en route). Both have the same root cause — neither party has commitment. We built BuyorMeet around the insight that a refundable deposit eliminates both failure modes at once.
How deposit-protection works
When a buyer reserves a listing, they place a refundable deposit (typically 10-20% of the price) which is held in escrow by Stripe Connect. The seller takes the listing offline. Both parties meet at a mutually agreed location. After the in-person inspection and exchange, both parties confirm in the app — and only then does the deposit release back to the buyer (or forfeit to the seller if the buyer no-shows).
The same mechanism backs the Buy Now / Reserve flows for high-value items where the buyer wants to pay upfront. Funds clear to the seller after delivery confirmation. Disputes are mediated by BuyorMeet using the full transaction record (messages, deposit timestamps, location data the buyer and seller opted to share).
Where we operate
1,000+ cities
US + Canada coverage
12 categories
Vehicles, furniture, electronics + more
Every transaction
Deposit-protected by default
Major-metro hubs include Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary. Smaller cities aggregate into provincial and state-level hubs.
Our principles
- Buyers and sellers both win when both commit. Deposit-protection isn't a fee — it's the commitment mechanism that makes a no-show economically irrational for both sides.
- No social graph required. Your trades aren't broadcast to your friends, your name isn't scraped from your Facebook profile, and you don't need a real-name account for a $40 lamp.
- Free to list, free to browse. The only fee is a small platform fee on optional shipping transactions. Pure local pickup is free for both sides forever.
- Local-first. Listings are searched within driving distance by default. Shipping is opt-in, not the default — keeps the marketplace true to its "buy locally" positioning.
How to reach us
Customer support: contact@buyormeet.com— aim for under 24 hours on weekdays. Press inquiries the same address with "Press" in the subject. Bug reports and feature requests through the in-app feedback form get routed to the engineering team daily.
Try it yourself
The fastest way to understand the platform is to use it. Browse listings in your city, post something you've been meaning to sell, or check the press page for recent coverage.