Whatnot Community Guidelines

At Whatnot, we've created a fun, safe and inclusive community for collectors and like-minded people.

We're asking buyers and sellers, our community, to adhere to the following simple guidelines: be nice and be honest.

Violation of any of these guidelines may subject your account to corrective action in accordance with our What Actions We Take guidelines.

Guidelines for everyone:

• No Hate and Harassment: Hateful conduct and harassment erode trust, disrupt communities, and discourage participation. To ensure a safe and respectful environment for everyone, we strictly prohibit hateful behavior and harassment, including sexual harassment. Learn more about what we consider hate and harassment.
• No violence: Promoting, threatening, encouraging or displaying violence is not permitted on Whatnot. This includes promoting violent organizations and extremist propaganda.
• Treat Whatnot Staff with Respect: It can be frustrating when things go wrong, but the staff is here to help; treat them with respect, and cooperate with problem-solving. Abusing seller/support tools and harassing Whatnot Staff is not tolerated and will be subject to corrective action on the platform.  
• Do Not Share the Personal Information (including addresses) of other users. 
• Do Not Spam:
  • Do not send the same message over and over again (this includes unsolicited messages promoting your show or listings).
  • We do not condone phishing of any sort within the Whatnot app.
  • Troll bidding (bidding an excessively high amount with no intention to purchase) is not permitted on the app.
• Do Not Game Auctions: Don’t do anything to disrupt a live auction or artificially influence the price of an item. This includes employees of sellers: employees can’t bid on your items as a seller and sellers can’t bid on employees’ items.
• Do Not Game Giveaways: We strictly prohibit any form of automated or programmatic giveaway entry. All entries made by these methods will be voided and your account access may be limited if found utilizing these methods.
• Do Not Buy or Sell Whatnot Accounts or Features
  • Buying, or selling Whatnot accounts is prohibited. You are responsible for the activity that happens under your username; accounts should only be used by those to whom the account is issued. This includes selling or transferring your account to another user.
  • Selling or buying Whatnot features such as raids, follows, and reviews are prohibited. Advertising the sale of Whatnot features is also prohibited.
• Do not abuse referrals: Users cannot create multiple accounts to receive additional referral credits. If you are found in violation of this rule, you may be subject to a permanent ban from Whatnot.
• Do Not Improperly Associate the Whatnot Name or Brand with Obscene or Inappropriate Content
  
  • Do not impersonate others, deliberately misrepresent your identity, or engage in deceptive account practices. This includes but is not limited to misleading or deceiving others, scamming users, abusing Whatnot product features, impersonating Whatnot employees or representatives, or attempting to evade enforcement actions. 
  • Explicit language in your Whatnot username or livestream title is strictly prohibited
  • We reserve the right to the use of 'Whatnot' in usernames for employees only
  • All other accounts using 'Whatnot' in their username are prohibited and will be subject to investigation.
  • Using 'Whatnot' in social media account usernames is discouraged and will be subject to investigation (and legal action if deemed trying to impersonate our brand).
  • We will issue corrective action to any user that improperly associates our brand with harmful and/or inappropriate content on social media or elsewhere.

• Teen Activity

  • You must be 13 years of age or older to use Whatnot. For those aged 13-17, we require permission and supervision from a parent or legal guardian aged 18 years or older to access the platform. Learn more about Whatnot’s requirements for teens.

• Banned Accounts

  • You may not create an Account or use the App in any way if any Account you created or used is, or has been, banned or if Whatnot has otherwise previously prohibited your use of the App.

Guidelines for sellers:

• You are responsible for your account - As the account owner, you are responsible for all behavior related to the channel, including violations of our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. This applies whether an account is run by an individual or a company. Any misbehavior, including those related to conduct by guests, content featured or rebroadcast, or employees' streaming and fulfillment will be reflected on your account record.
  • In addition to taking action on the hosting account, we may take additional action on the accounts of guests, employees, and others involved in violative behavior.

• Honor Purchases and Giveaways

  • All sales are final. Sellers may not cancel auctions for going below a desired amount. For events outside of a seller’s control, please contact Seller Support.

• Do Not Sell or Giveaway Fakes: Never misrepresent the authenticity of an item
• Do not infringe on IP that you do not own or have not licensed. Whatnot prohibits the use of any items that violate the intellectual property rights of any party. Visit our IP Policy for more info. 
• Do Not Smoke or Vape Around Inventory: In order to ensure the quality of sold items on Whatnot, you may not use smoke products, including cigarettes and vaporizers, while onstream around inventory. This includes auction items, sold items, or giveaways
• Accurately represent the condition of your items: In order for buyers to make an informed purchase, you must honestly describe the condition of your items. This includes disclosing any flaws and showing the item on all sides. Sellers may be subject to corrective action and billed back for items that are misrepresented.
• Be Truthful about Pricing: To keep the Whatnot community inclusive and honest, please be fair and truthful with pricing. Never inflate the market value of an item, especially with “mystery packs” and other compilations.
• No Shill Bidding: Shill bidding is prohibited on Whatnot. Shill bidding is defined as a seller, or a user related to a seller, bidding on an item to artificially inflate the item price, whether from the same or separate accounts. Users related to a seller include a seller’s employees and members of the seller’s family or household. Whatnot monitors all bids and transactions and takes action on accounts suspected of shill bidding. Shill bidding may also violate laws in your state/country
• Do not offer or sell off-platform grading services: Sellers must not offer or sell grading services on Whatnot, with the exception of pre-approved livestreams hosted at live comic book events, or US-based sellers offering integrated PSA grading. For US-based sellers, please see the PSA Grading Overview.
• Adult and Mature Content: We do not allow content that is sexually explicit, pornographic, or illegal, even if the explicit content button is toggled on. 
  • Sexually explicit content includes content or products that explicitly describe or display sex organs, sex acts or other erotic behavior, or nudity that is sexually explicit in nature.
  • Sensitive products that contain nudity, such as artwork, books, manga, or comic books, may be permitted if they are not sexually explicit or pornographic,no nudity is displayed in preview pictures, and the sensitive content toggle is toggled on. 
  • Nudity is not permitted in any streams, video-on-demand, preview pictures, pre-show videos, stories, or other content uploaded by sellers into Whatnot. 
  • In addition to our standard enforcement actions, we may use technology to detect and block explicit content upon upload. 
  • Some content may not be appropriate for all audiences but is not against our policies. We may limit the visibility of your stream if your preview photos or pre-show videos contain sensitive content.
  • Whatnot prohibits any content that is inconsistent with Whatnot’s values and brand. 
  • See the Items Prohibited from Being Sold on Whatnot.  

Sensitive Content Toggle: All sellers must toggle on the “sensitive content” toggle if their livestream contains repeated profanity, the display of permitted nudity in any of the products they are selling (e.g., comics, artwork, books), or if they determine that their stream is otherwise sensitive for certain audiences. 

• Weapons, explosives, and other dangerous items and accessories are prohibited from being sold on Whatnot 

• Do not sell or go live from an unsupported country, or country other than the one you registered with during your seller application. If you move to a different country or wish to sell temporarily from another location, you must create a new account and re-onboard. Please see our help article on supported locations for more information.

• Be Responsible While Going Live: 
  • We discourage sellers from excessive drinking or marijuana use during streams. Do not sell alcohol, marijuana, or any related paraphernalia on the platform. 
  • Do not engage in any dangerous behaviors, including dangerous challenges, pranks, or operating a vehicle while streaming
  • You must be 18 years of age or older to host a live stream
    • Anyone under the age of 18 that you allow to appear on your livestream must be supervised. To demonstrate your supervision, you must at a minimum appear on screen at the start of your show.
• Do not Avoid Whatnot Fees: Any method of circumventing Whatnot’s platform fees is strictly prohibited. Sellers must exclusively process payments for items sold on Whatnot through the Whatnot platform, and under no circumstances accept or solicit off-platform transactions. Users may not redirect to purchases on another platform and may not promote live selling shows on other platforms. Users who encourage others to exit the platform or engage in off-platform transactions will face account review and potential suspension.

• No gambling or purchase-based prize games: Whatnot strictly prohibits gambling, including paid entries to raffles or races.  Whatnot also prohibits sales containing bounties and other purchase-based prizes. Learn more about our policies around gambling and purchase-based prizes.

• Follow standards around breaks and mystery boxes: Whatnot limits how breaks and mystery boxes can be sold. Please review our rules around breaking and mystery boxes if you are planning to run a game on these topics.

• Ship Quickly & Safely: Please ensure you ship your items within two business days of the sale. Carefully package your items to ensure they arrive safely.
  • There are a few instances where you may have extenuating circumstances, or an item you are selling may exceed our shipping drop-off guidelines due to the nature of the item, such as customized goods (e.g., art pieces). In these cases:
    • Email trustandsafety@whatnot.com before you list the item for sale or host a livestream, detailing why the shipment of these items may be delayed.
    • When listing the item, indicate that the item is customized in the product description.
• Don’t Abuse Our Shipping Pricing:  If you abuse our shipping pricing structure, you may be subject to corrective action and billed back for incorrect shipping charges.  See here for best practices on setting shipping weights.  Examples of abuse of our shipping pricing structure include:
  
  • Setting unreasonably low initial shipping weights when listing your item (e.g., 1oz for a pair of sneakers)
  • Setting excessively high shipping weights before sending off your shipment (e.g., 20lbs for a pair of sneakers)
• Uphold our standards off-platform: We expect Whatnot users to adhere to all of our Community Guidelines while on Whatnot.  We also recognize that severe offenses committed by Whatnot users on other platforms may pose substantial risk to the Whatnot community.  As a result, clear and incontrovertible evidence of any of the following actions taking place on any platform is subject to investigation and a warning, temporary, or permanent ban from Whatnot:
  
  • Knowingly selling fake items
  • Knowingly selling stolen assets, assets taken without authorization, and otherwise illegally obtained assets
  • Not honoring purchases / giveaways
  • Defrauding customers in any way
  • Explicit and/or credible threats of violence
  • Leadership or membership in a known hate group
  • Carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to any form of assault or sexual exploitation of children.
  • Actions that would compromise the physical safety of the Whatnot community
  • Explicit and/or credible threats against Whatnot, including Whatnot staff
• In cases where the above behaviors have occurred in the distant past, users have gone through a rehabilitation process, and our investigation finds no evidence to suggest risk to the Whatnot community, we may decline to take action or revoke a prior action based on appeal. Additionally, we may decline to review appeals submitted more than a month after account enforcement.
• Follow all Giveaway Policies:
  • When running giveaways on Whatnot, Sellers must use Whatnot’s Giveaway Feature, and follow all Giveaway policies as set out in the Giveaways Overview.
• Follow all Tipping Feature Policies: When using the tipping feature, users must follow all rules set out in the Tips Terms and Conditions, including not using tips to circumvent otherwise applicable fees on Whatnot (which we need to run the app), or tips for content or services that are sexually explicit, or that otherwise violate the Community Guidelines.
• If you are hosting a livestream, you must be actively engaged during the entirety of the show: At Whatnot, we strive to provide our buyers and sellers with the best experience possible. Below are some guidelines you must follow:
  • Pinning giveaways on an inactive stream is not allowed and the stream will be ended immediately, this does not include pinning giveaways on upcoming streams 
  • Buy-It-Now items on an inactive stream are not allowed and the stream will be ended immediately. You may continue to list Buy-It-Now items on upcoming streams. Do not repeatedly move the start date and time of a show - this may result in corrective action.
  • Sellers must end their stream through the app. Hard quitting the app will keep your stream active and could result in your account receiving corrective action.
  • Please refrain from rescheduling your livestreams excessively
• In addition to the above, any act used to take advantage of other users is considered a violation of our Community Guidelines.
  
  
• Respect our Discord: We adhere to Discord’s Community Guidelines in order to protect our users and keep our platform safe. We have a zero-tolerance policy of any harassment or retaliation in our Whatnot Discord channels. Negative comments using Whatnot’s name and other sellers will not be tolerated and you will be removed from the Whatnot Discord channels. User complaints (for both buyers and sellers) should be sent into trustandsafety@whatnot.com, not our Discord. Urgent reports for violations can be sent to the Trust & Safety Discord (@whatnot-trustandsafety). Those who violate these policies or abuse our Discord will be subject to removal from Whatnot’s Discord and further investigated for temporary or permanent banning from the Whatnot platform.

Guidelines for buyers:

• No Chargebacks: All bids are binding and all sales are final. If there is an issue with your purchase, please contact support. Buyers submitting payment disputes may be permanently banned from the platform.

If you have any questions, please click here to reach out to our Support team and we will be happy to help!