Help
Safety Notices

Oodle uses various automated and manual safety mechanisms for reviewing listings posted on our site. When we determine a listing is fraudulent or spammy, we remove the user from our site, and send a "Safety Notice" to everyone who has communicated with this user. If you received such notice from us, read below for some frequently asked questions.





What should I do now?

Most of the time, you don't need to do anything. As long as you did not send the scammers money or did not give them your credit card or bank account information, you should be fine. Even if you gave them some personal information, such as your actual email address (which we try to prevent by providing you with an anonymized oodle.com address) or your address, there isn't much a typical scammer can do to harm you.

If you did disclose your bank account information or credit card number, call your bank immediately.

If you lost money, select "I lost money to a scammer" from the dropdown above to contact us about that specific issue.





Can I report this person to any authorities?

If you lost money, you could report the user to your local police or the local FBI office. If you didn't lose money, you can still file a report on the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center website.





How do I know this person really is a scammer?

There are many signs that might give someone away as a scammer. Here are some common ones:

  • They insist you contact them at their private email address and not through Oodle.
  • They have a complicated story about why they can't meet in person.
  • They try to create a sense of urgency.
  • They want you to send money without seeing the item.
  • They claim to use a "vehicle protection program".
  • They want to charge you a shipping fee for something they're giving out for free or very cheap.
  • They want to pay you more than you asked for and then ask you to send part of that money to a "shipping agent" or someone similar.
  • The deal is simply too good to be true.



I really think you made a mistake in this case.

Our safety mechanisms do occasionally make mistakes. If your received a safety notice about someone you are pretty sure is a legitimate user, please let us know so we can reinstate that account as soon as possible.

Here are some signs that the user is probably legitimate:

  • They offered to meet in person or they gave you their address.
  • You talked to them on the phone.
  • There is nothing suspicious (see above) about their listing or behavior at all.



Let us know if you think we marked someone by mistake.



From the FAQ, visit the correct help form and fill it in completely.



[Hint: Click "This does not answer my question" to reveal the contact form.]


*Subject
*Name
*Email
*Email of the user for whom you received the Safety Notice.If a message was sent through our system, please use the coded email address you recieved.
*Tell us why you think we made a mistake.
Verification: