Posted by This is a copy of the email sent to Singapore users in Jan 2023.
I wanted to reach out and personally let you know how important trust and safety is to us at Carousell.
We built Carousell to make selling and buying easy to inspire everyone in the community to sell, buy and share with each other. Through the millions of transactions that you and our community have done, we have heard many of your stories that showed us how each transaction on Carousell goes beyond dollars and cents; it goes on to make more possible for everyone – helping people more affordably get what they need, make money from their underutilised items, and in the process discover a hobby, make friends and also save the earth.
As such, it pains us to see an increase in phishing scams on our marketplace, impacting members of our community. It is something we take very seriously and we are resolved to continue our relentless efforts to fight these bad actors. I want to assure you that we’re doing everything we can to keep you and our community safe.
What has Carousell been doing
First, this is a top priority for me and my teammates. We have assembled a cross-functional task force that is working tirelessly on the product experience and leveraging on engineering and AI to combat these scammers. Some of the major initiatives include:
a) Ramping up on both automated and manual ability to suspend scammers swiftly from our marketplace
b) Blocking messages that include emails and phone numbers within the Carousell Chat and warning users of the risk of sharing them
c) Requiring users to verify their mobile numbers before they initiate a chat
d) Enhancing our Help Centre to help users better understand and identify potential scams
We are currently working on several additional new features to further improve trust and safety, and will be implementing these in stages. We encourage you to keep your app updated to the latest version to ensure you have the latest safety updates.
As scam operations are constantly evolving, we also partner closely with the authorities such as the Singapore Police Force and work with them to monitor scam trends to improve our features to combat them and protect you.
Scammers are always finding new ways to trick people, so it’s important for you to stay vigilant and be aware of the latest methods to protect yourself and your loved ones. As a general rule of thumb, Carousell will never direct you to an external site or platform to enter your banking details. We strongly advise that you keep your chats within our platform. Once the interactions leave our platform, we will not be able to act to stop or deter these scammers. We have updated our phishing scam education page on our Help Centre (support.carousell.com) that you can check out to learn more.
If you spot any suspicious activity or users on our platform, please report this to Carousell immediately through the ‘Report User’ feature that’s available on both the web and the app. Our team will review these reports with the highest priority.
I want to thank you for being an active member of our community and for helping us keep Carousell a safe place for everyone. Rest assured my teammates and I will continue to work hard to keep Carousell a safe and pleasant community for you.
Su Lin Tan
Senior Vice President of Operations
Carousell