5miles: Buy and Sell Locally Reviews

by Blaqmare

Used to love 5miles years ago and my experiences on it were largely positive but lately I have noticed a disturbing pattern: sellers are either putting up fake ads, don’t seem serious about selling or will leave conversations hanging in messages with no explanation or resolution. I see it happen on this app way more than I see on other apps. I use apps like offerup, Craigslist and Facebook marketplace and my experiences are much better at these other places. People on these other sites seem motivated to sell and will respond in a fairly timely manner and usually resolve the conversations whether it leads to a sale or not. I’m not sure why this trend of lazy, unmotivated or rude sellers on this app but it’s been happening way too much and so I wanted to share that on here. Not sure if this app can do anything about this disturbing trend but bottom line I think they should know how buyer experiences compare at other places. And no, I’m not low-balling sellers or being rude to them when I contact. It’s just a consistent pattern I have noticed these days that sellers on this app seem unmotivated and often leave conversations hanging way more than I have seen at other selling apps or websites.

by 1jass1

I have this member who wrote a false review, which I’ve never sold or bought anything from this person. And have yet to hear anything from their support staff, I don’t believe a person should be able to leave a review without me buying or selling an item to them or at least should be able to write a review back but for some odd reason this person was able to write a review on me but I wasn’t allowed to write one on them plus I had blocked them so they should’ve never been able to get onto my profile. Major bugs need to be fixed

Now I’ve been dealing with harassment from the same user for an hour. And yet to hear anything for support and hopefully they ban this user but from the looks of it probably not

by Buysellfanatic

I have had 5miles for a few years now and started running into an issue with posting. I wasn’t able to get past a certain point and kept giving me an error to where i couldn’t post any new items or even edit current posted items. I got so frustrated that i emailed their tech support to get the issue resolved. I emailed back and forth with now going on 4 people. At first they kept saying restart your phone and try reconnecting your internet and so forth which i thought was weird seeing as though my issue had nothing to do with any of those solutions. I then got an email from another department saying the reason for by denied purchase was due to not having enough “friends”. That’s when i knew they weren’t going to resolve the issue. Why is it so hard to fix a cliche on 5miles . I haven’t had this issue before so I’m not sure why it started now. It has made 5miles impossible to use which is very disappointing. I’ll be using other apps for my selling needs and keep this in mind when reaching out to a company like this. My issue is still currently unresolved.

by Nunya Biz Ness

I’ve tried so many times to sell stuff through 5miles and have been disappointed every time. Seems like the people that are “buyers” on here don’t do anything but waste your time asking lots of questions and basically wanting you to give it away for free only to leave you stranded in the end. They have no means of screening sellers and buyers to verify if they are even who they say they are. Also, I tried to advertise a yard sale and posted pictures of the things I’m selling to encourage people to come and check them out in person. In the end I get flagged by 5 miles and my listings get pulled for “duplicates”. Why? Because I used the same pictures for my individual listings as I had in my yard sale listing. So dumb in so many different ways. Just save your time people! If you want to safely and efficiently sell your stuff take the cut and sell through EBAY. Heck, at this point even offer up has better options for sellers than 5 miles. 5miles is nothing but overhyped due to their “duplicate” commercials on social media.

by Geaux4two

I’ve honestly never seen anything like it, other than a commercial that used to be on TV were customer service personnel were only authorized to apologize, repeatedly…

Apparently there is some provision somewhere deep within the details of 5 mile, that allows them to suspend your transaction by placing it into pending status, due to a nonspecific issue that no one in customer service can identify or communicate to you, even though your credit card has been billed and the seller has selected a meet up location and scheduled to meet you.

I wasted four hours of my time on Friday while waiting for Customer Service to get to the bottom of what specifically the issue was, but they seem completely unable to do anything other than apologize; which to their credit, which they have done repeatedly over and over again for the last 36 hours…. And fine apologizers they are indeed… however, eventually become you’re really aware but they seem to have the ability to do nothing but apologize, as they have no information, can’t get any information, can speak to no one who has any information, and provide no solution whatsoever for your dilemma…

An amazing experience, because I have truly never seen anyone be so well-trained and polite while providing no information or solutions whatsoever… Truly remarkable.

by Ryan Stout

I got the LetGo app as well as this app.
Photos: One thing I loved on this app was the ability to select several photos during the photo upload process. Whereas LG only allowed one photo selection at a time and I had to wait on each photo to load before I could select the next one.

Wrong Category: The other thing about this app, two of my toys were categorized wrong. Why? There was not a toy section, so I put it under Other. When I got notice, I looked around and guess where I found Toys? Under Fashion and Accessories. Really? When is a toy a fashion or an accessory? No, you guys have the category mis-categorized. Plus, you can’t just select a new category, you have have to delete the post and start over. Time consuming and ridiculous.

Sales: Even though I only had seven items posted I got no likes, no interest and no sales. On other sites I got likes and questions.

Folowers: I got two followers. Both Male. I know anyone can follow who they want, but I thought it was weird being I was selling kids toys, baby blankets, woman’s dresses and house shoes. I felt like this is not a dating site and felt uncomfortable. Especially since I never had that experience on other selling apps.

Other than that, I don’t like the auction on the site at all and things kept telling me I need to boost and stuff. Not interested, so I deleted 5miles .

by Mbkta

This is also, as others below have described, been a big issue on 5miles . People messaging you that haven’t been active for more than 3-5 days or more that message you out of the blue with one or two questions in badly written English. “Can pick up today”, “I would like to buy”, “need more information before I buy now”. These messages are not sent by the buyer but 5miles itself. Please do NOT use 5miles to sell your items unless you know it is a REAL person and will actually be in your area to pickup items. I cannot stress enough that someone that hasn’t opened 5miles in more than a week will not send a message at all.

Please fix this in your app, your obvious malpractice of selling, or I will make sure to find a way to get your app off of 5miles Store.

by Mark@Boston

5miles is plagued with scammers, and this app does absolutely nothing to protect the customer. On eBay when a buyer makes a purchase you know the sellers real name, email address, physical address, and phone number simply by conducting business with the seller. For some reason this app chooses to hide basic contact information from the buyer, so if anything goes wrong with the transaction the buyer is screwed. this app response to me was that that would be a good future update for 5miles to allow buyers to see the sellers contact information. My scammer’s account has yet to be banned, but can you believe the scammer was actually allowed to block me!? What’s even more ridiculous is that this app is unwilling to provide me with any of my sellers contact information unless I get a subpoena. Has anyone at this app even offered to reach out to the seller in an attempt to retrieve my money. Absolutely, NOT! eBay, why did I ever leave you!

by Oh-mercy

5miles is awful. It’s supposed to be 5 mile distance but I get listings from the whole eastern seaboard. I went to settings over and over and over. I set the distance for 10 miles, set the sort order for closest. When I go back it’s the same, I tried re entering my search, it’s exactly the same. I go back to settings, it’s all back to default. There is no way to save your settings.
Then there are the constant ads and multiple listings from commercial companies. Sometimes there will be a dozen of the same commercial listing in a row.
Also, after scrolling endlessly and finally found a couple of listings In in my area they were over a year old- and no wonder- trying to find what you’re looking for is not worth the time.
Do not waste your time. This is the worst buying/selling app I’ve ever come across.

by Gogo Gal

SCAM Alert! Beware of 5 miles “Dash” bid buying! You won’t get items or if you do get them the items received are cheap knock-offs, broken, or wrong item won. And by all means don’t make complaint to sellers or 5 miles because then your account will get suspended like mine was after I lodged complaint over 8 items won, paid for & not received. I was told by multiple customer service reps that a supervisor would contact me; and that has never happened (over 6 weeks ago). No refunds either! I’m done. I have 100% positive reviews from selling & buying on 5 miles since joined years ago. Before you get pulled into their new Dash scam, suggest you read the comments and account questions on 5 miles and you’ll see I’m not the only one. Scammed & DONE with 5 Miles.

by Johnnyp12759383

If you look through the reviews you read reviews that have 5 stars but everything they said was a negative about 5miles . 5miles is filled with spam and advertisements, it does not feel authentic. It links to other apps like “burner phone” that just want to make you subscribe for payments to o use. The speed deals that you bid on are just cheap items from china that show an original price that is completely made up, a scam I hope people do not fall for. User-ability is terrible and difficult to navigate. I also believe messages are fake to think your products are getting interest.

The final thing. I have never heard of 5miles and found it by just strolling though 5miles store. I have never heard of anyone else actually using 5miles.

Stay away, there are way better apps and websites you could use to sell your items.

by Hungryguitar

After 5 auto listings you have to pay

So in other words if you have car parts of any kind you can only use 5miles about 5 times before you have to pay. This is a short term app and it is not worth paying for. There is other things they can charge for but this makes 5miles completely useless. Apps like offer up work much better, same with facebook market place and even the classic craigslist. You don't have to pay with them to post there is no hidden fee or monthly payment just post and sell which is how it should be. If you want to charge people to sell then offer a premium account with features better than stock but if you start taking features away and force people to buy a premium account most of them are just going to merge over to another app.

by WordsYO!

The profile photo upload is terrible. It won't center how you set it, and it has to be square or it's impossible to crop it correctly. Then, even when you do finally get it right (I had to go into a secondary app to crop my photo and then come back), it didn't center it as I had selected. It just showed the top left corner of the photo.

Also, you need my phone number for verification? No, I'm not doing that. I've had way too many problems with apps and services sharing my phone number, now I get spam and scam calls all day long. So, I'm sorry if I don't trust you, but I just don't trust the situation anymore. Furthermore, if you need my phone number and won't budge on that, fine. Could you tell me BEFORE I typed up my whole first ad and cropped all the photos of the item (keep in mind, I had to back out and use a secondary app to make them square first and then come back to upload them). That was terribly annoying and insulting that you would try to make someone feel "forced" to submit personal info once they've completed their ad.

I just started trying it out a few minutes ago, and you've already greatly annoyed me twice.

Thanks, but no thanks. I will not be using your service.

by Loisangel

I haven’t had ANY positive experiences with 5miles. I spend the time to type out detailed listings, add my pictures, etc. only to have my listings removed with ZERO explanation. When you click the option to appeal, it immediately gets denied, again without explanation. If you email them for clarification, it’s the same thing. I tried getting more information, and they told me that nobody can sell those items, yet there are LITERALLY dozens of them listed! They said I could report them, so I did, yet over a week later & theirs are still up.

I’ve NEVER had a listing removed in the other selling apps! In fact, with 5miles, I’ve never had any real people inquire about my items. Maybe the previous reviews I read were accurate.

Sorry if this review sounds like a rant- I’m frustrated!!

by Prelestnica

1. Takes forever to load compared to Craigslist, Offer Up and Letgo apps.

2. Generates the fewest sales compared to the above listed apps. Namely one sale compared to a few dozens througout the other platforms. No wonder, how many users would want to stick with 5 Miles considering all the drawbacks?

3. Limits photo size, allowing to load any shape photo and then removing (!) the entire ad a few minutes after posting because “one of my photos was too long”. At least allow to edit photos instead of having me post the entire ad all over again!

4. Persistently displays new activity notification on app icon even when I already reviewed it.

5. Counts app generated nonsensical notifications as messages making me check 5miles way too often with no way to turn them off and keep the relevant buyer message notifications.
Update: after a few of these before noon today I did change the rating from 2 stars to 1 star.

6. Gets stuck on some screens making it impossible to continue without closing 5miles and reopening it again.

7. The ads are as irrelevant and ugly as could be (think advertising gross pics apps over and over again).

by NDIBRO

I can’t 100% prove it but I get messages from people who have not been active in multiple days or weeks. I think 5miles is looking at products that are not selling well and it sends automated messages from inactive accounts. The messages are asking questions like “ Do you have more pictures?” I always have at least 5+ pictures in my listings. When I ask what other pictures they want there is never a response. They ask “Can you give me more information?” I over explain each of my products to make sure that there is no confusion later in the process. But again when I ask what other information they are looking for, no response. I get the question are they being sold as a group or individually and in the listing it says “I am pricing/selling them individually.” Shocker no response from them either. I have yet to sell anything on here because the couple times I have had real interest the people don’t show up or they are expecting me to deliver a $15 product 30 miles from my house for free. Use a different app this one doesn’t seem to have an ethical setup!

by Dax210

5miles used to be pretty OK. I used it just like offer up, Facebook marketplace and let go. Unfortunately it has taken a really rough turn trying to be a bidding site. This is extremely unfortunate and is prone to all kinds of fake sellers, items that you don’t have enough time to read the description on before they are a bid off, they really need to go back to what made them good to begin with. They are not eBay, they are not Deal Dash , Now they are not even offer up or let go. I’m not sure who is in charge of the site but they really need to reconsider the direction they are going or they will not be existing for very long. I honestly do not even have them in my buying and selling folder anymore

by Peter Weisskirchen

5miles itself is actually good. Giving points or coins is also a good idea. Good to handle, easy.

But here the cons: I never so,d or buyers anything here. In fact today I deleted 5miles , because I posted a car for sale.

The statistics in 8 hours are: 135 answers in FB marketplace (including some local sales groups I have to admit).

24 askings in OfferUp (Letgo).

5 askings in the local neighborhood page Nextdoor.

Not a single one in 5 miles. Every time I tried to sell something or buy something, 5 miles wasn’t a big part of it. I am sorry to write that, but somehow nobody really using 5miles . It just make me do some work for nothing.

The intention and making of 5miles would make me 5 stars. The reaching out to customers just only one.

If ther will be a better marketing and advertising to reach out for more people, I surely consider to re-I stall.

As I said. I hate to make bad reviews. But sometimes things have to be said and maybe for a better reason making a change.

Thx this app and maybe another time

by Ridestherange

This is a great user friendly app for the most part. The only exception is that they require all photos to be square and limit the number to twelve. If the photo does not meet their square 2:1 ratio photo limitation, they will not approve the post and therefore it cannot be sold on their site/app.

Perhaps it is a limitation of their software developers but, not all objects are square or can be edited to be square without distortion of the object appearance, which would then be a misrepresentation of the product and fraudulent. Please develop a way to give more allowance for sellers. All other marketplaces allow for rectangular and circular photo uploads. That is the reason for the four-star, instead of a five-star rating.

by JodyDebi

“-The 1st Time I opened 5miles , I filled directs and registered, then W went to the EXACT-CATEGORY, and literally in 5 minutes found JUST what We desperately needed and the ASKING PRICE SEEMED SO FAIR, and the Gentleman so POLITE, I felt it was a “Fair & Square” Deal!!!
I did not ask for the discount (which could not be much...the price was immediately satisfactory (I’ve been shopping-around BECAUSE I AM 60 YEARS OLD, TERMINALLY DISABLED, and on a ‘FIXED INCOME’ that barely allows Me an extra $400 monthly. But, that covers ZERO because mostly it’s for food. Potty paper. Toothpaste and CLOTHING from Goodwill.
So, when I immediately FOUND IT...
“I bought it!”
(THAT IS HOW THESE APPS ARE SUPPOSED TO “WORK”)....! - -Right??!
“-ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!”

P. S:My Wife and I really feel the need to say “THANK YOU ‘5’-MILES”!
You and My ADULT SELLER turned Me from “A BROWSING PERSON” into a “BUYING Person...In just “5 -MINUTES!”.

(-that’s gotta be a RECORD!)
-a little miracle happened!) lol!

by KJohnsonMD

I use several other apps for local sales including OfferUp, letgo, and craigslist and 5miles is by far the glitchiest! If pictures aren’t sized just right your whole listing gets rejected, and instead of allowing you to edit it, you have to cancel it and start all over from scratch – ridiculous! I don’t have this issue with any other app for the same identical listing! Another issue that relates only to this backwards app is listings getting canceled for being in the wrong category. Again, you have to start all over from scratch instead of being able to edit the listing. When you appeal, they don’t tell you what category it’s supposed to be in and if you don’t put it in the right one, your listing gets canceled again and you have to start all over. Support is virtually no help because they don’t read your comments and just send you canned responses that just infuriates you even more!

by Abbyr815

I’ve had 5miles since 2016 and it USED to be a great app but for some reason lately I can’t post a single item without getting a notification almost immediately from this app saying my post was taken down because “it’s a duplicate post”. Before this app even responds with some MEANINGLESS APOLOGY or a STUPID SUGGESTION of theirs my post was NOT a duplicate post. All my items are different and I take time to take pictures and post them. People (that act like children) selling the same thing I do flag my posts because I sell my stuff cheaper and this app doesn’t even bother looking at it before removing it. It’s frustrating and I don’t need a USELESS LINK from the “this app developer” to some email y'all will never reply to. If you’re going to delete my “duplicate post” delete everyone else selling the same thing I do without picking and choosing just mine it’s frustrating. I haven’t used 5miles for about 6 months for this same reason and don’t plan on using it any longer. I’ve had the same issues with OFFER UP because there’s childish people there too but when I email them they resolve the issue quickly and ban those accounts flagging competitors but when I tried to dispute the issue with this app they simply went ahead and removed most of my posts and said they were all “duplicate”. I WOULDN'T WASTE ANY TIME DOWNLOADING 5miles WHEN OFFER UP IS A WAY BETTER OPTION THEIR TEAM ACTUALLY PAYS ATTENTION TO YOUR ISSUES.

by ChelseaKeebs

Latest update: App recently updated to a new look, and now all of my liked/saved local items for sale are gone. Only my this app Dash items remain. Very disappointing; I saved items I intended to buy, and they’re gone.
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Update: Used 5miles successfully for months, sold several things, and made appointments. App would sometimes not open, would have to try a few times. For the past several weeks, I've been able to access 5miles once or twice. Otherwise, it won't open, despite trying multiple times a day. Deleting 5miles .
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Been using 5miles for a few weeks. Sometimes I get notifications for messages I've already read, sometimes for messages that aren't there. Nothing too bad (other than some of my experiences with other users.) Now, after updating to the new IOS on my phone, though, 5miles won't open a lot of the time.

by Osteopath

Really and truly one of the greatest local market apps available . Can get good deals on everything from electronics to housewares . There is a feedback system so you can get an idea of who you are interacting . On a couple of my meet ups the other person mentioned that they were nervous about meeting up with cash to buy something. I’d recommend to those who are wary of meeting a “stranger” in public , pick a place like the DMV , a police station, or meet inside a store. Meet during daylight hours as opposed to nighttime, this way you could feel more secure about meeting up to trade . Don’t let the possible (if any) bad apples ruin the experience of using a market like this .