Dealing with Trolls in your show

Trolls joined my Livestream. What are my options?

Firstly, Remain Calm

Trolls feed on the reactions they drive. To help you handle misbehavior during your show, we’ve developed a number of tools and strategies. Remain calm and be sure to use the tools available to you. 

Removing Problematic Users

If your show is already underway and you encounter a user who misbehaves, you have the option to remove them from your show, or block them. We encourage you to have a trusted moderator assist with your show so they can remove misbehaving users, allowing you to focus on running a smooth, successful show.

Selecting ‘Remove from Show’ will immediately remove the user and prevent them from being able to chat, bid, or re-enter for the rest of the show. Please note that once a user has been removed, they cannot be added back to the show.

Selecting 'Remove from Show' followed by 'Block' will remove the user from your show and prevent them from:

• Following you
• Direct messaging you
• Viewing your profile
• Bookmarking, joining, and chatting in your shows
• Purchasing your listings

To take these actions during a show, tap the user’s name and select the desired action:

• Block
• Remove from Show/Live

Re-run Sales with Failed Transactions

If the payment has failed and you believe the buyer was a troll bidder, you can re-run the item. Please note: occasionally, the payment will fail for an honest reason (e.g., the buyer mistyped their card details). In these cases, it’s worth waiting to see if the buyer can pay using an alternative method before re-running the item.

Disable Pre-bids

Sometimes it can feel like there are a lot more trolls than there really are, because one troll goes and places unrealistically high pre-bids on everything in your shop/queue with the intention of letting the payments fail. If you are experiencing that, you now have the option to disable pre-bids either before or during your show. This feature helps prevent one misbehaving user from spoiling the whole show.

To disable pre-bids on your show: 

1. Head to your show on whatnot.com (this feature is only available on web)
2. Click on ‘Edit Show’
3. Toggle ‘Disable prebids’ to ‘On’

Require Buyers to be Verified

Before you start your show or during your show, you can choose to allow only verified buyers to participate. Enabling this setting ensures that buyers either have a history of successful purchases on Whatnot, or have an authorized payment method connected to their account. 

To enable this setting before your show:

1. Schedule your show.
2. Go to the scheduled show’s preview.
3. Tap the button with three dots on the right-hand side.
4. Toggle verified buyers setting to ‘On’.

To enable this setting during your show:

1. Tap the button with three dots on the right-hand side.
2. Toggle verified buyers setting to ‘On’.

Note: this setting is only available on the Android or iOS app.