Estate planning as a Swappa account holder

Swappa is a person-to-person marketplace for buying and selling used technology: phones, tablets, laptops, watches, cameras, gaming gear, and other electronics. Swappa does not hold a seller balance. Under its Terms of Use, marketplace payments are made directly by the buyer to the seller, and Swappa is not otherwise a party to the transaction beyond collecting its sale fee. Sellers are required to link a PayPal account, and select business sellers can also accept Stripe payments. For an estate, the Swappa account matters for its open device listings, any sales the seller was paid for but had not yet shipped, and its transaction history. The account itself cannot be transferred under the Terms.

After a Swappa account holder dies, Swappa, LLC may transfer account to a designated recipient, but this is handled case by case. The outcome depends on the documentation provided and is entirely at Swappa, LLC's discretion.

What happens at death

Swappa publishes no deceased-user or estate process. A scan of 210 fetched pages covering its Terms of Use, Marketplace Policies, Privacy Policy, Returns and Refunds policy, help and contact pages, and every English FAQ answer found no reference to death, a deceased user, an estate, an executor, or an heir. Section F of the Terms states: "You may not transfer or sell your Swappa account and User ID to any other party." Section G reserves the right "to cancel unconfirmed or inactive accounts." An estate therefore contacts Swappa support, which handles the request individually. Swappa does not hold the money: Section J.6 provides that "Marketplace payments are to be made directly by the Buyer to the Seller," and that Swappa "collects its sale fee for providing the services of the Site; however, it is otherwise is not a party to such transactions." Sale proceeds land in the seller's PayPal account (or Stripe account, for business sellers) and are recovered there. Swappa's help centre states that deleting an account is permanent and removes private user data while certain operational data such as transaction records and order history may be retained, and that support can instead deactivate an account, which "will retain your information and history."

Frequently asked questions