Members' guide · Settings and safety

Reporting a problem

Tell your community's moderators about a post, an event, a Pulse post or an enterprise.

What you can report

• A post in the Market: open it and tap Report Post.
• An event: open it and tap Report event.
• A Pulse post: tap the flag on it.
• An enterprise: open it and tap Report Enterprise at the bottom.

Then:

• A Market post: choose a reason (Spam or scam, Offensive content, Misleading post or Other), add a few words if they help, and tap Submit Report.
• A Pulse post: choose a reason and tap Submit report.
• An event: tap Report to confirm.
• An enterprise: type why, and tap Submit Report.

A person or a message

There is no separate button to report a person or a single message in the phone app yet. Block them instead: blocking also sends a report to your community's moderators. See "Blocking someone".

In the web app, a chat with one person has a report button at the top: a flag, with the word Report on a wide screen.

What happens next

Your report goes to your community's moderators: the owners and admins who run its server, and any members they have made moderators. They decide what to do. A moderator can remove a post or a Pulse post. Only the owners and admins can suspend a member, while the community votes on it.

• A Market post or an event: if they remove it, you get an alert: "The post you reported was removed". If they look at it and keep it, you are told that too. If its author took it down before they looked, you are told it is no longer up.
• A Pulse post, an enterprise or a person: you are not told the outcome in the app.
• Nobody is told who reported. Not the person you reported, and not anyone else who reported the same thing.

These alerts come under Marketplace Activity in your notification settings. On your phone's lock screen each one says only "Your community has a notice for you."; open BeanPool to read it. See "Notifications". The web app has no notifications: it shows each alert while it is open, or the next time you open it.

If one of your own posts is removed by the moderators, you get an alert saying so, and why if they gave a reason. It does not say who reported it.

Now and then the admins clear out old listings to keep the Market tidy. If some of yours are cleared, you get one alert saying how many. That is routine tidying, not a report.

On global.beanpool.org

The global community at global.beanpool.org is open to anyone, with 12 secret words or a sign-in, so it looks after itself a little more:

• A post reported by three members who don't know each other is hidden at once, until a moderator looks at it. Each of them must have been a member for at least a week, be past the new-account limits below themselves, and be at least half as established there as the person who posted it. Time as a member counts most, then posts that stayed up and people they have finished a deal with. Trust badges don't count. People who joined from the same internet connection within a day of each other count as one, and so do people who came in on invites from the same person. Someone who reported three posts in a month that the moderators then kept doesn't count for a while. Otherwise the reports wait for the moderators, as they do everywhere. So a few new accounts can't hide the posts of someone who has been there for months.
• A post by a new account made with 12 words is hidden by one such report, while the account is on its new-account limits. Once it is past them, or has added a sign-in, its posts need three like anyone's.
• A hidden post can still be seen by its author, who gets an alert that it is hidden, not removed. If the moderators keep it, everyone can see it again.
• Accounts that joined together. The moderators can see which accounts joined from the same internet connection within a day of a reported one, never the connection itself, so they can deal with a burst of fake accounts in one go: hide all their posts while they look, or remove the accounts. If yours are hidden that way, you get one alert, "Your posts are hidden for review", and they come back if the moderators keep them. People in one household or at one meetup often join together, so the moderators check each account before they act.
• New accounts have daily limits for their first 3 days, and until 3 of their posts have stayed up: 3 posts, 5 photos, and 10 new people to message in any 24 hours. An account made with 12 words has smaller ones, for its first 7 days and until 3 of its posts have stayed up: 2 posts, 4 photos and 3 new people. Adding a sign-in moves it to the usual ones at once, counted from when it joined. Replying to someone who wrote to you first is never limited. If you reach a limit, the app says which one and when it lets up.
• Why new accounts start slowly. Anyone can make an account there, and nothing stops one person making many. Behind a sign-in there is a Google, Apple or Facebook account, which takes some effort to make; 12 words take none. So what keeps the global community usable is how little a brand-new account can do, and how quickly its spam can be hidden. Nothing is locked: a new account can do everything an older one can, a little at a time at first, and the limits end once it has been there a while and 3 of its posts have stayed up.
• If the moderators remove three of your posts within 30 days, you can't post or send messages there until a moderator lifts it. You can still read, edit your profile and leave.
• There are no community votes there. When an admin suspends someone, the suspension lasts 7 days and then lifts by itself, unless an admin lifts it sooner.
• Polls there are informal. Each one says "An informal poll; it decides nothing". Anyone can join, with 12 words or a sign-in, so one person with several accounts could tip the count.

None of this happens in your own local community: there, every report waits for the moderators.

If someone is in danger, contact your local emergency services first.

Related

• Blocking someoneHide someone's posts and messages from you, and undo it later.
• Getting helpWhere to look when you are stuck, and who to ask.
• When a deal goes wrongCancelling a deal, and what happens when you cannot agree.
• The PulseWhat your neighbours make and share elsewhere, in one feed.

The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 112.