Buyer protection, step by step

Buying something for euros

Four steps, and the money sits still for three of them.

1. You pay once, on KidLoop. The item, the delivery and the protection fee are charged together. The money goes to KidLoop's account with the payment provider, not to the seller. Nothing reaches them at this point.
2. The payment waits. There is no countdown on a purchase and no automatic release. It stays held until you say the item is as described, or until you report a problem.
3. The seller sends the item. They mark it shipped, with a carrier and a tracking code where there is one, or you agree a local hand-over.
4. You check it, then decide. Compare what arrived with the listing. One button says it is fine and releases the payment to the seller; that click is the release. The other reports a problem and keeps the money exactly where it is.

The protection fee

€0.70 plus 5% of the item price, shown on the checkout page before you pay and never added afterwards. If a report is upheld you get it back too: the refund is the whole charge, protection fee and delivery included, not just the item.

When something arrives wrong

Report it from the order page: say what is wrong and add up to five photos. The order moves to disputed, your payment stays where it is, and a KidLoop mediator picks it up. The mediator is never the buyer or the seller, and a verdict from either is refused. They choose one of exactly two outcomes and have to write down why; you both read the same reasoning.

• The buyer is refunded: the whole charge goes back, protection fee included.
• The payment is released to the seller: the mediator judged the item was as described.

Swapping items

A swap moves items, not a price. Money appears in only two places: the €0.95 service fee each family pays when both items go by post (dropped altogether when the two fees would come to more than 15% of what is being exchanged), and an optional euro top-up when one item is worth more than the other. An in-person swap with no top-up involves no money at all, so there is nothing to hold.

1. Both families accept and pay. Acceptance creates the agreed top-up and each family's service-fee obligation. Shipping unlocks only after the payment provider confirms every required payment is held; the top-up still does not reach the other family.
2. Both families send. If nobody has sent anything seven days after accepting, the swap expires: the top-up and both service fees are refunded, and the family that did not send carries the return postage and gets a strike on their account.
3. Both families confirm. Each of you says whether what you received matches what was agreed. The second confirmation starts a 48-hour hold, and held money cannot be released before it runs out. A refund is not held back that way.
4. The money is settled. When the swap is settled after those 48 hours, the held money moves according to what you both confirmed. Both items fine: the top-up goes to the family it was owed to and the service fees are kept. One item not as agreed: that family carries the return postage and gets a strike, and the top-up is refunded if it was going to them, released otherwise. Both items wrong: the top-up and both service fees are refunded and the items go back.

Taking something for free

A donation moves no money, so there is nothing to hold and nothing to refund. Claiming is free, KidLoop records the hand-over, and you arrange it in KidLoop messages. Meet somewhere public.

What this does not cover

• It applies to euro payments. A donation, or an in-person swap with no top-up, has no money in it to protect.
• KidLoop does not inspect or certify items. It does not impose blanket category bans; the photos, condition and description are what you have.
• A mediator decides on the photos and the text you both send in. Nobody physically examines the item.

Setting up payouts

Stripe collects your name and date of birth, an identity document, and the bank account the money should land in. You fill this in on Stripe’s own pages, usually a few minutes’ work. KidLoop never sees the document or the account number; we keep the reference of your Stripe account and whether Stripe allows payouts, and nothing else. Stripe often answers at once and sometimes takes longer if they want a closer look. That decision is theirs and we cannot speed it up.

The identity badge

Skipping or failing this check does not block listing, buying, swapping, donating, messaging or getting paid. It only controls the identity badge.

What Stripe asks for

• A government-issued identity document.
• A selfie that Stripe compares with the photo on that document.

What KidLoop stores

Until erasure completes, KidLoop stores only Stripe's opaque session reference, its status, an error code when a retry is needed, and the verification time. KidLoop never receives or stores the document, selfie, legal name, birth date, address or verification report. After Stripe confirms erasure, KidLoop removes the linked row and keeps only a one-way session hash so late webhooks cannot restore it.

What the badge means

It means Stripe matched this adult's identity document and selfie. It does not guarantee that a listing is accurate, an item is owned by the seller, or a transaction is risk-free.