Estate planning as a Bonanza account holder

Bonanza is an online marketplace and eBay alternative where sellers list items in a "booth" and buyers check out by paying the seller directly through the seller's own PayPal, Stripe, or Amazon Pay account. Bonanza does not hold seller funds or sit in the middle of the money — it bills the seller separately for Final Value Fees on completed sales. The estate-relevant assets are therefore the funds in the connected payment processor (PayPal or Stripe), the booth and its listings, the seller's feedback and customer records, and any fees still owed to Bonanza. The Bonanza account itself is non-transferable under the User Agreement.

When a Bonanza account holder dies, their account may be transferred to a designated person at Bonanza Worldwide, LLC's sole discretion. A transfer is not guaranteed, and satisfactory documentation is required before processing any request.

What happens at death

Bonanza does not publish a deceased-seller or estate-succession process, and its User Agreement contains no death or estate clause at all. What the User Agreement does say is that a user agrees "not to transfer or sell your account (including feedback) or User ID," so the booth cannot pass to an heir, and there is no beneficiary designation and no self-service account transfer. Critically, Bonanza does not hold seller money: buyers pay the seller directly at checkout through the seller's own PayPal, Stripe, or Amazon Pay account, and Bonanza states it "has no hand in the financial part of a transaction" and places no holds on payments. So the sale proceeds for a deceased seller are not held by Bonanza — they sit in the seller's connected payment processor, and the estate pursues them by working with PayPal, Stripe, or Amazon Pay (and the receiving bank account) directly. The only balance Bonanza itself holds is Bonanza Tokens, and the User Agreement forecloses any claim to them: Tokens "are not redeemable for cash and have no cash or monetary value," "do not constitute a property right or interest," are "not transferable from one Bonanza account to another," expire 12 months after being awarded, and "All Tokens terminate upon any termination of your membership." What is left at Bonanza is therefore the booth and its listings, the feedback and sales records, and money owed in the other direction: Final Value Fees (a minimum of 11% of the Final Offer Value as of May 1, 2025), a flat 25-cent transaction fee per completed sale for sellers without a membership plan, and any paid membership subscription — all billed to a credit card on file, which Bonanza may charge if the balance becomes past due. Because Bonanza reviews any request to close or settle a deceased seller's account individually rather than through a published procedure, the account policy is classified as case-by-case: the estate contacts Bonanza about the account and the outstanding fees, while the money is pursued through the payment processor.