Our role

Sellers post their own goods, set their own prices and describe their own stock. Buyers find those listings and contact the seller. That is the whole of what happens here.

We are not a party to any sale. We don't own the goods, don't possess them, don't inspect them, don't hold your money, don't arrange delivery and don't guarantee that anything listed exists, works, is legal to sell or is as described. The contract of sale is between the buyer and the seller.

We're not an agent for either side, not a broker, not an auctioneer, and not a dealer in second-hand goods. We don't negotiate on anyone's behalf.

Our own conduct. What we say on this site about the site, how we rank and present listings, how we handle your information, and what we charge for the optional promotion and highlight products — those are ours, and the Australian Consumer Law applies to them in full.

Nothing on this page limits any guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) or any other law that can't be excluded by agreement. A disclaimer doesn't override the law, and we're not pretending otherwise.

The goods, the sale and the conduct of the people on either side of it. Specifically, we are not liable for:

• whether goods are as described, fit for purpose, safe, complete, genuine, or compliant with any Australian Standard;
• whether a seller owns what they're selling, or is entitled to sell it;
• whether either party turns up, pays, hands over the goods, or behaves honestly;
• what happens once you leave this site to inspect, collect or pay for something.

Where we are permitted to limit our liability, we limit it to resupplying this service or paying the cost of doing so.

If a seller is acting in trade — a builder, a shop clearing stock, anyone selling as a business — the consumer guarantees apply to the goods they sell you. Those guarantees are owed by that seller, not by us, and the fact that the listing appeared here doesn't move them onto us.

A private seller clearing out a garage generally doesn't owe consumer guarantees at all. Knowing which kind of seller you're dealing with is part of deciding what to pay.

This is the practical consequence of everything above, and it's the single most useful sentence on this page. There is no escrow here and no buyer protection scheme. Money that leaves your account goes to the seller and doesn't pass through us, so we can't reverse it.

Look at the goods. Meet somewhere sensible. Don't transfer a deposit to someone you haven't spoken to. If a seller pushes you to pay before you have seen what you're buying, that is the moment to stop.

Regardless of who owns them: asbestos and products containing it; unsafe, non-compliant or recalled electrical goods; anything subject to a current product recall; goods requiring a licence the seller doesn't hold; stolen goods; and anything whose sale is restricted under Australian law.

Building products carry real safety obligations, and some materials that were legal to install are not legal to resell. The obligation to know sits with the seller. If you aren't sure, find out before you list it.

Every listing is checked automatically against those restrictions before it appears. The check reads the title, description and notes the seller wrote, refuses some listings outright and holds others out of sight until a person has looked at them.

That check cannot inspect goods and cannot see anything the seller did not write down. A product containing asbestos described as “old wall lining” passes it. It is a filter on words, not a verification of anything. Nothing on this site has been inspected by us, no listing has been confirmed as accurate or lawful, and a listing appearing here is not us vouching for it in any way. We remove listings when we become aware of a problem.

Email jjessop@gmail.com with the listing link and what's wrong with it. Reports go to a person.

We may remove a listing or close an account without notice where someone is misrepresenting goods, listing things they can't sell, harvesting contact details, scraping the site, abusing another user or routing around the fee. That is a right we keep, not a service we promise: deciding what to do about a listing is a judgement we make, and we don't undertake to reach any particular outcome.

Sellers post their own photos and words, and warrant that they're entitled to. If something here is yours and shouldn't be — a photograph, a product description, a trade mark used in a way you object to — email jjessop@gmail.com and tell us what the material is, where it is on the site, and what your right in it is. We'll take it down while we look at it.

Retailer and manufacturer names appear on this site only to identify what a product is or where it was bought. That isn't a claim of endorsement, affiliation or approval by any of them.

Where a listing shows a saving, the comparison is either a new price read from a retailer's own page, a figure the seller supplied, or an estimate — and the listing says which. An estimate is labelled as an estimate and never borrows a retailer's name.

A retail price is accurate as at the date it was captured, and prices change. Treat a comparison as a starting point for your own check, not as a representation by us about what any shop charges today.

SurplusYard is operated by:

This page sits alongside our terms of use and privacy policy. Where this page and the terms differ, the terms govern.