A marketplace buyer wants to see your ID. Say no.
Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, Vinted, Craigslist — nothing about a private sale needs your document.
Short answer
- There is no legitimate reason for one private person to hold another’s identity document.
- “For verification” is the standard script — real verification is a platform feature, not a message from a buyer.
- Being moved to WhatsApp is part of the scam, not a convenience: it leaves the platform with no record.
- Courier and “payment protection” pages that want ID are fake — no carrier and no payment provider asks a seller for a passport.
You list a sofa, a phone, a coat. A buyer messages, friendly and fast, and somewhere in the third or fourth message: “Can you send a photo of your ID? Just for verification before I pay.”
The answer is no, and it is worth understanding why it is always no.
Nothing in a private sale needs your document
Work through what actually has to happen for the sale to complete:
- Payment. The buyer sends money, or the platform’s payment feature holds it. Neither step involves your identity document.
- Collection or postage. They need a place and a time, or an address on a label. Not a passport.
- Trust. Reasonable, and this is what the platform’s ratings, its payment protection and its in-app chat exist for.
There is no fourth thing. Where a marketplace verifies its users at all — and platforms like Vinted do have genuine seller-verification obligations once your sales pass certain thresholds — it does so inside the app, in a flow you open from your own account settings. No verification system anywhere routes a document through the other party to the deal.
The two things that follow
A fake payment or courier page. You are sent a link that looks like a carrier or a payment provider, “confirming” a payment that is waiting for you. It asks for a document photo and, a step later, card details. No courier and no payment provider asks a seller for a passport.
An account opened in your name. A clear photo of a data page carries your document number, date of birth, signature and machine-readable zone — which is most of what an application for credit needs. See can someone steal your identity from an ID photo?.
The tell that comes first
Almost always, the ID request arrives just after an attempt to move you off the platform: “message me on WhatsApp, it’s easier.” That is not convenience. In the platform’s chat there is a record, a report button and a moderation trail; on WhatsApp there is none of that, and the account can be deleted by the time you look for it.
Staying in the platform’s own chat is the single most effective thing you can do, and it costs you nothing.
| What they ask | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| “Send ID to verify” | No such platform flow exists | Decline, report |
| “Message me on WhatsApp” | Removing the record | Stay in the app |
| “Confirm on this courier link” | Phishing page | Do not open it |
| “The payment is held until you verify” | Fake payment-protection page | Check your own account instead |
| “I’ll send extra, refund the difference” | Overpayment scam | Stop; block |
What to say
“I don’t share ID for private sales. Happy to complete this through the platform’s own payment and delivery.”
Then report the account. Marketplaces act on this pattern, and reporting is what makes the next seller’s version of this conversation shorter.
If a copy is genuinely needed for something else
Private sales are not the only time someone asks. When the request is real but informal — a host, a landlord, a client — a redacted, watermarked copy is the right answer: cover the document number, the MRZ, your date of birth and your signature, and stamp it with who it is for. Anonymize my ID does this on your phone with nothing uploaded. And for the requests where redaction is not an option, see when redacting your ID won’t work.
If you already sent something, work through you already sent an unredacted ID copy.
Frequently asked questions
Why would a buyer on Facebook Marketplace ask for my ID?
In a genuine private sale, they would not. The two common reasons behind the request are collecting enough identity data to open accounts or take credit in your name, and steering you onto a fake courier or payment-confirmation page that asks for the document plus card details. Neither needs you to comply for the sale to happen — because there is no sale.
The buyer says the platform requires it before they can pay. Is that true?
No. Where a marketplace verifies sellers, it does so through its own settings, with a flow you open yourself, and it never routes the document through the other party. A buyer relaying a platform requirement to you in chat is describing a system that does not exist.
Vinted asked me for ID and it seems to be the platform, not the buyer. What then?
Resale platforms do run seller verification once your sales pass certain thresholds — that is a real, regulated obligation on them. The test is where the request appears: open the app yourself and look for it in your account settings. If it is only in a message or an emailed link, it is not the platform.
What do I actually say?
"I don't share ID for private sales. Happy to complete this through the platform's own payment and delivery." It is short, it is not rude, and a real buyer will simply carry on.
I already sent a photo of my ID to a buyer. What now?
Ask them to delete it, then treat it as a leak rather than an emergency: watch for accounts opened in your name, consider a credit-file notice, and keep the conversation as evidence. There is a full checklist in the guide on having already sent an unredacted copy.