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How third party terms and conditions work on Trade Me

Trade Me generally don't enforce third party terms and conditions, unless buyers are at risk

12 March 2021

When members join and use Trade Me, they form a contract with us, the basis of which is our Terms and Conditions (T&C).

T&C are everywhere, like them or not. We find them especially useful for maintaining a ‘trusted and safe’ site and we regularly enforce those T&C.

We're talking about how we use them to ensure that members have goods in their possession before items are listed on the site or for explaining our rules about ‘in transit’ motor vehicles, for example.

On occasion, Trade Me members list items which are subject to their own separate T&C. The contractual relationship for those specific T&C is between the owner of the item and another party and are nothing to do with Trade Me.

We will not generally enforce third party T&C on behalf of third parties.

An example is the sale of concert tickets on Trade Me. Often the T&C of a concert ticket will include a term that states the tickets are non-transferable.

Trade Me allows the sale of concert tickets so what gives you might say?

Given that Trade Me is not a party to that contract between the promoter and the purchaser of the ticket, we will not enforce that term on behalf of the promoter.

There are however occasions where Trade Me will remove items that are subject to T&C and this is where allowing the sale will result in a bad buying experience for the buyer. An example of this in action is airline and ferry tickets which should not be listed on the site as those kinds of items are commonly cancelled by ticket issuers due the nature of how the ticket can be traced.

Going back to the concert ticket example – where a concert promoter has identified the particulars of a ticket and has cancelled that ticket and informed Trade Me they have taken such an action, Trade Me will remove that listing from the site.

I suggest members who want to list tickets should read our advice about how to best list them.

Too long, didn’t read:

Trade Me doesn’t enforce third party terms and conditions but may choose to do so when a purchase may result in a bad buying experience for members.