Trustee Service

One of the major security features on Cardmarket is the Trustee Service. We provide this service on tracked shipments with very few exceptions. When used, Cardmarket holds onto the seller's payment until the buyer has confirmed the arrival on Cardmarket. This ensures that both parties are happy with an order before the payment is deposited. This service comes with a nominal fee based on the value of the order. You can find all of our fees on our fee table.

The trustee service requires that the order be shipped with tracking so that the delivery status of the order can be checked on the internet. Upon sending a tracked shipment, you will receive a tracking number at the post office. With this number, you can track the shipment online.

We highly recommend that the seller sends the tracking number to the buyer via a message on the Cardmarket website. Thus the buyer can also follow the shipment and make sure that he receives it (or collects it from his post office) in time!

Checking the shipment status

Any order shipped via registered letter or registered parcel has a unique tracking number, so that you can track & trace the letter. The tracking number usually has the following format: RR123456789XX (XX being the senders's country code, e.g. FR for France)

Pretty much every postal service in Europe provides a tracking website, where you can check the delivery status online. Alternatively you could use a generic tracking website like https://track24.net/.

Tracking Results

There are different tracking statuses and some of them are a bit misleading. Please make sure that the status is arrived (and this means arrived at the buyer's house, not at the buyer's country). Please look for the following word:

  • EN: arrived or delivered
  • DE: angekommen or zugestellt
  • ES: entregado
  • FR: distribué
  • IT: consegnato (al destinatario)

This means that the order actually did arrive. However, if you see something like:

  • EN: The item was scanned in the country of destination
  • DE: Die Sendung wurde im Zielland erfasst
  • ES: Llegada a la oficina internacional de destino
  • FR: En cours de traitement à XXX
  • IT: in lavorazione ai Centri Postali

it means that the order did NOT arrive, so please wait for the status to change. If more than 7 days pass without a status change, you should start an investigation (see below).

Requesting confirmation of an arrived shipment (7 days case)

If you have succesfully verified that your order did arrive at the buyer's but the buyer has not confirmed arrival within 2 business days, please first contact the buyer on Cardmarket and ask them kindly to please confirm the arrival. If he does not do so within the next 3 business days, please do contact our Customer Support via the Helpdesk, selecting the correct shipment and providing:

  • The postal Tracking Number
  • The shipping date.

Upon reception of this e-mail, we will check the delivery status and then set a 7 days deadline to the buyer to please confirm the arrival. If the buyer does not confirm within 7 days and if no complaints regarding this shipment are reported, we will confirm arrival after 7 days. The process is illustrated in the diagram below:

Reporting a not arrived shipment (14 days case)

As a buyer, if you are waiting for more than 7 days for a tracked order to arrive, please contact the seller and kindly ask them for tracking information. With this tracking information, try to find out what happened with the order by checking the shipment status. Very often, the letter is waiting at your post office and you can go to collect it there.

If more than 14 days have passed since the seller confirmed shipping and you still have not received the order, then please report the case to our customer support by going to My purchases -> Shipped orders and then clicking on Did arrive? -> NO. Please note that the [NO]-Button only appears if more than 14 days have passed since the seller confirmed shipping:

This will launch the following process:

  1. The seller will receive a message, asking them to provide the tracking code to Cardmarket and to request a postal investigation for the missing shipment
  2. Cardmarket will set the order under investigation

The deadline for the seller to provide tracking and request and investigation is 14 days. If he has not provided the necessary data before the deadline, we will refund the order.

If the seller has launched an investigation, we will have to wait for the investigation results. The investigation can have three possible outcomes:

  • The postal service finds the "missing" letter and delivers it to the buyer. In that case, the buyer can confirm arrival and finalize the transaction.
  • The postal service finds the "missing" letter and returns it to the seller. In that case, seller and buyer can agree on either new shipping or cancellation and inform Cardmarket.
  • The postal service declares the order as lost and pays a compensation to the seller. Cardmarket will refund the lost order to the buyer. The seller may then apply for further compensation by Cardmarket.

Please note: The investigation process may take up to 3 months, therefore we will always wait for the investigation process to finish before confirming or refunding any order. After the 1-month or 3-month deadline has expired, the buyer may contact us to ask for the shipment to be refunded.

For any further information about the Trustee service, please contact our Customer Support. Please make sure to provide the Cardmarket shipment number as well as the postal tracking number in your message.