Terms of Service

SurplusED is built for educational surplus buyers and sellers, including public schools, private schools, districts, universities, homeschool families, resellers, nonprofits, businesses, and other education-adjacent participants. You must provide accurate account, institution, location, and contact information and keep it current.

A single account may be used to buy and sell. Institution verification is a trust badge only. An unverified badge does not prevent account use, and a verified badge does not mean SurplusED guarantees a user's identity, authority, item condition, solvency, or future performance.

You are responsible for activity under your account and for protecting your sign-in credentials. SurplusED may suspend, restrict, or close accounts that appear inaccurate, unsafe, fraudulent, abusive, or inconsistent with these Terms.

SurplusED provides a marketplace for listing, discovering, bidding on, and coordinating educational surplus transactions. Unless we expressly state otherwise in writing, SurplusED is not the seller, buyer, auctioneer of record, appraiser, logistics provider, insurer, tax advisor, legal advisor, or title guarantor for listed items.

We may provide tools for payments, messaging, listing review, dispute intake, user reports, moderation, analytics, and administrative oversight. Those tools do not make us a party to the transaction between buyer and seller except for our own platform fees and platform obligations.

The payout hold described below is a marketplace risk-control process. SurplusED is not a licensed escrow service, and users must not describe the service as escrow.

Sellers must have the right and authority to list and transfer each item, including any required institutional approvals, surplus disposition approvals, title documents, asset tags, board approvals, or internal procurement requirements.

Listings must be accurate and complete. At minimum, sellers should disclose title, category, condition, quantity, known defects, included accessories, location, pickup or shipping terms, loading requirements, starting bid, reserve price if any, and any material limitations that would affect value or safe use.

Items are generally sold as described by the seller and as accepted by the buyer. Sellers must not hide defects, misstate condition, use misleading photos, list prohibited items, or list items that include confidential, student, employee, health, financial, or restricted records.

SurplusED auctions are monthly. The expected marketplace close time is the 25th of each month at 5:00 p.m. America/Chicago unless a listing, auction page, or administrative notice states a different close time.

Bids are binding offers. Do not bid unless you intend and are able to pay the winning amount, buyer fee, taxes if applicable, and any disclosed shipping, pickup, loading, title, or transfer costs.

SurplusED may enforce bid increments, reserve prices, bidder authorization, account limits, and anti-fraud checks. If a valid bid is placed during the final 5 minutes of an auction, the auction may extend by 5 minutes. This anti-sniping rule is intended to give bidders a fair chance to respond.

We may cancel, extend, pause, reopen, or correct an auction when needed to address technical errors, listing errors, suspected abuse, unlawful activity, payment failure, safety concerns, or administrative requirements.

SurplusED uses Stripe Connect and related Stripe payment tools to support marketplace payments. Supported launch payment methods may include cards, ACH Direct Debit, and digital wallets through Stripe. Additional payment methods may be added, limited, or removed.

The starting platform commission is 4.5% charged to the buyer and 4.5% charged to the seller on completed transactions. Stripe processing, payout, chargeback, tax, or other third-party costs may also apply where disclosed or required by the payment flow.

The winning buyer is expected to pay the final bid amount, the buyer platform fee, and any applicable taxes, shipping, pickup, loading, transfer, or title-related charges disclosed for the item. Seller proceeds may be reduced by the seller platform fee and applicable Stripe or payout costs.

Seller funds are generally held in the platform balance until buyer receipt confirmation. If the buyer does not confirm receipt, funds may auto-transfer after 14 days unless a dispute is opened before the deadline. Holds may be extended for disputes, fraud review, payment risk, chargebacks, legal requests, or policy violations.

Sellers choose the available logistics option for each listing: pickup only, shipping available, or buyer-arranged shipping. Buyers are responsible for reviewing logistics terms before bidding.

Unless a listing says otherwise, buyers are responsible for timely pickup, shipping coordination, loading arrangements, carrier selection, insurance decisions, and compliance with any site access or safety requirements. Sellers must provide reasonable pickup windows and cooperate with the disclosed logistics terms.

Buyers should inspect items promptly at receipt or pickup and confirm receipt only when the item has been received. Receipt confirmation may trigger seller payout processing.

Users should first try to resolve transaction issues directly and professionally through SurplusED messaging. Disputes may include non-payment, non-pickup, misrepresented items, missing items, unsafe logistics, damaged shipments, ghosting, or prohibited activity.

SurplusED may review listing data, payment data, messages, photos, reports, and account history to help evaluate disputes. We may request more information, delay payouts, reverse or cancel transactions where possible, restrict accounts, or take other reasonable marketplace actions.

SurplusED does not guarantee a particular dispute outcome, recovery amount, refund, replacement, chargeback result, tax treatment, or legal remedy. Users remain responsible for preserving their own records and pursuing any rights they may have outside the platform.

Users may not list, buy, sell, request, or transfer illegal items, stolen property, recalled or unsafe goods, weapons, hazardous materials, controlled substances, counterfeit goods, personal records, student records, employee records, health records, financial records, software or devices containing restricted data, or items that violate applicable law or marketplace policy.

Users may not manipulate bids, shill bid, interfere with another user's transaction, scrape or misuse the service, bypass fees, harass other users, submit false reports, upload malicious files, or use SurplusED for fraud, spam, discrimination, or unlawful activity.

SurplusED may remove listings, hide content, block transactions, preserve records, contact users, notify payment providers, or cooperate with legal authorities when we believe a policy, safety, security, or legal issue exists.

After completed transactions, SurplusED may allow buyers and sellers to rate or review each other. Ratings and reviews must be truthful, transaction-based, and free of private information, threats, harassment, or discriminatory content.

Users may report non-payment, ghosting, misrepresented items, prohibited content, account abuse, or other marketplace concerns. SurplusED may moderate reports and reviews, but we do not promise to review every item before it appears on the service.

Administrative actions may include warnings, listing edits, listing removal, payout holds, account limits, suspension, closure, verification changes, audit logging, and other steps needed to protect the marketplace.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect information. By using SurplusED, you also agree to receive service communications related to accounts, listings, bids, payments, pickup, disputes, security, and policy updates.

Do not upload or transmit confidential education records, student data, employee records, payment credentials, protected health information, or other restricted data through listing photos, descriptions, messages, or attachments unless SurplusED has expressly approved that workflow in writing.

Marketplace records may be retained for operational, security, tax, accounting, payment, audit, dispute, legal, and compliance reasons.

SurplusED aims to provide an accessible marketplace experience and welcomes accessibility feedback. If you have trouble using a page, listing, form, or feature, contact us with the page URL, the assistive technology involved if any, and a description of the barrier.

We may provide reasonable support or alternate access while we evaluate and improve the affected experience.

SurplusED is provided on an as-available basis. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, error-free bidding, listing accuracy, item condition, seller authority, buyer payment ability, logistics performance, tax outcomes, or third-party service availability.

To the fullest extent allowed by law, SurplusED and SurplusED, LLC will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, lost goodwill, replacement costs, or transaction opportunities.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to every user. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot legally be limited.

SurplusED is operated by SurplusED, LLC in Hastings, Nebraska. Questions about these Terms, account issues, accessibility, or marketplace support can be sent to customerservice@surplused.net.