Estate planning as a Mercari account holder

Mercari is a US resale marketplace where individuals list and sell used and new items. The estate-relevant asset is the seller earnings balance — real money from completed sales that lands in the account once the buyer rates the order (or after the automatic rating that follows delivery). Mercari, Inc. is a licensed money services business (NMLS ID 1486447), and the balance is withdrawn to a bank by Direct Deposit (free ACH to a checking account) or Instant Pay (to a Visa or Mastercard debit card, $3 per withdrawal, up to $600 per month). The account itself is a personal, non-transferable license: Mercari's Terms bar a user from assigning or transferring their rights "by operation of law or otherwise" without Mercari's written consent, and Mercari publishes no deceased-account or estate procedure. What an estate has to deal with is the earnings balance, the transaction history, any open orders and listed goods, and closing the account.

Mercari, Inc. reviews transfer requests for Mercari balance on a case-by-case basis after the account holder's death. Approval is at the company's sole discretion, and documentation requirements must be met before any transfer is considered.

What happens at death

Mercari publishes no deceased-account or estate procedure at all, so what happens to a Mercari account after a death is decided by Mercari on the individual request. What the Terms of Service (effective February 24, 2025) do establish: the account is a "personal, limited, revocable, non-transferable license" (Section 5), and a user "may not assign or transfer these Terms or your rights under these Terms, in whole or in part, by operation of law or otherwise, without our prior written consent" (Section 21) — inheritance is a transfer by operation of law, so the account and its seller ratings do not pass to a survivor. The earnings balance is different from the account: it is the seller's own money from completed sales, held with Mercari and its bank (Section 16), released to the balance once the buyer rates the order or the automatic rating is applied (Section 10), and withdrawable only to a bank account by Direct Deposit or Instant Pay (Section 3) — and Mercari's own payout article states that "[y]ou must use your own bank account to withdraw your Mercari balance" and that each Mercari account can use only one bank account, which is exactly why there is no self-service way to direct a balance to an estate account. Mercari can hold a balance for up to 90 days, extendable to 180 days, while it reviews an account (Section 9), and the same section states that "accounts that are abandoned or balances that are unclaimed are subject to state abandoned property regulations" — so an unclaimed balance is not written off by Mercari, it escheats to the state, where the estate can later claim it through the state unclaimed-property office. Mercari credits and coupons are promotional store credit, cannot be exchanged for cash, cannot be transferred to another person, and "become invalid and expire upon termination of your account" (Sections 4, 17, 18). Because Mercari documents no estate path, an executor's request is a written request to Mercari support, backed by the death certificate and the letters appointing them, not a form the company publishes.