Help & FAQ

You must register with an approved school email (including recognized .edu domains). Your campus is assigned from that email. Listings and profiles are scoped to your school so you only see students at the same campus.

Creating an account and listing items is free. Protected checkout uses 6% seller fee (min $0.49, max $4.99) and 4% + $0.49 buyer-protection fee (max $3.99) on successful protected checkout. There is no listing fee. Cash or off-platform payments are unprotected. See Pricing.

Campus Protected is Empeerium’s in-person completion flow. The buyer authorizes a card payment (manual capture). Funds are not captured until both the buyer and seller confirm the handoff. This is a payment authorization plus a later seller transfer — not a legal escrow account.

Buyer authorizes payment on Empeerium. The card network holds the funds (they are not captured yet). Buyer inspects the item in person at a public campus spot. Buyer and seller each confirm the exchange. Payment is captured. Seller payout is initiated to the connected Stripe account. Unconfirmed exchanges expire or can be disputed under the existing cancellation rules.

Cash, Venmo, Zelle, or other off-platform exchanges are not protected by Empeerium. If you complete a sale outside Campus Protected checkout, we cannot hold, capture, refund, or payout that payment.

Do not list weapons, drugs or controlled substances, alcohol or tobacco to minors, stolen goods, counterfeit items, animals, or anything your school or local law forbids. Titles must name a real item. Report prohibited listings from the listing page.

Open the listing and use Report. Administrators review reports. Repeated violations can lead to strikes or bans on listing and messaging.

Do not confirm the handoff if the item is not what you agreed. Either party can open a dispute on a pending protected sale. If confirmation is not completed in time, the authorization is canceled and the listing can return to the marketplace. Card-network refund timing is controlled by the buyer’s bank, not Empeerium.

After both confirmations, Empeerium captures the authorized card payment and transfers the seller’s quoted payout to their Stripe Express account. Stripe then pays out to the linked bank on Stripe’s schedule. 6% seller fee (min $0.49, max $4.99) and 4% + $0.49 buyer-protection fee (max $3.99) on successful protected checkout.

There is currently no deletion control in Settings. Email info@empeerium.com from your account address to request deletion. Active protected sales may need to finish or cancel first. Deletion removes your listings from the marketplace; payment records required for compliance may be retained.

Status is a quiet signal of reliability. Member is the default for verified campus users. Trusted and Verified Plus may appear on some sellers as a trust indicator. It is not a badge collection.