Help and FAQ

1. Click Post a listing at the top of any page. If you aren’t signed in yet, you’ll make a free account first. It takes an email address and a password, and you verify the address from a link we email you before your first listing goes up.
2. Pick the category that fits best. The form changes to ask for the details buyers in that category look for, like year and mileage for trucks or hours for a snowmachine.
3. Write a clear title, set your price, and add up to 12 photos. The first photo is the one shown in search results.
4. Choose your region and community, and how the item can change hands: pickup, local delivery, shipping, or sending it out to the Bush.
5. Post it. It shows up in search right away and stays up for 30 days.

No. Posting is free in every category, and a free account can have up to 15 active listings at once. Paying is optional and only buys extra visibility (see bumps, Featured and Spotlight).

• Photos in daylight, from a few angles, including any damage. Buyers trust a listing that shows the rust.
• A title with the basics: year, make, model, size. “2014 Polaris RMK 800, 155” track” beats “sled for sale.”
• A real price. “Make an offer” with no number gets fewer messages.
• Where it is and whether it starts at twenty below, if that matters for what you’re selling.

A few categories have rules you have to agree to before posting. Firearms must be sold in person, within the law. Live animals can’t be shipped. These are on the form so nobody is surprised later. The full list of what can’t be posted is on the prohibited items page.

1. Sign in and open My listings.
2. Find the listing. Active ones are on the first tab; expired, sold and draft listings each have their own tab, and so do removed ones if you have any.
3. Click Edit. You can change the title, price, description, photos, category details and location.
4. Click Save changes. The listing updates right away.

Or open the listing itself while signed in and click Edit in the bar above it.

1. Open My listings, or the listing page while signed in.
2. Click Mark sold.

The listing comes out of search immediately and moves to your Sold tab, so you stop getting messages about it. Your conversations about it stay in your Messages. Please mark things sold instead of leaving them up. It keeps the site honest and saves buyers a wasted drive.

1. Open My listings, the listing page while signed in, or the bottom of its Edit page.
2. Click Delete and confirm.

Your listing comes off the site immediately and its photos are deleted right away. This can’t be undone.

Conversations about it stay in Messages for you and the people you were talking to, marked as deleted, so you can still sort out a pickup or answer a question. They’re removed 90 days later, along with what’s left of the listing.

If there’s a chance you’ll sell it again, mark it sold instead. You can bring a sold or expired listing back later without retyping anything.

A listing that a moderator took down, or one that’s hidden while we look into reports about it, can’t be deleted. It stays on your Removed tab with the reason.

Make sure you’re signed in with the same email you used to post it, and check every tab: Active, Expired, Sold, Drafts and, if it shows, Removed. A listing we took down stays on the Removed tab with the reason, and usually we email you as well. Still missing? Write to [email protected] with the listing title and we’ll find it.

30 days. After that it expires: it’s hidden from search, but it stays on your dashboard under Expired with all its photos and details. We email you a reminder before that happens (you can turn reminders off in Settings).

Renewing is free. In the last 7 days before a listing expires, a Renew button shows up on it in My listings and on the listing page. Click it and you get another 30 days. There’s no limit on how many times you renew something that hasn’t sold yet.

Every listing expires after 30 days unless it’s renewed. That keeps search full of things that are actually still for sale, instead of last winter’s firewood. Nothing is wrong with your listing or your account.

1. Open My listings, Expired tab.
2. Click Relist on the listing.

It goes back up for another 30 days with the same description, and the same photos unless it has been expired for more than 120 days (we clear out photos on listings nobody can see after that). Update the price first if you like. Relisting is free.

Free accounts can have 15 active listings at once. Mark sold or delete the ones that are done, or let some expire, and you can post again. Expired, sold and draft listings don’t count. If you regularly post more than that, a Business account has no limit.

Buyers click Message seller on your listing and write to you here on the site. We email you when a new message comes in, and you reply from Messages.

Your email address is never shown to buyers or sellers. Your phone number is shown only on listings where you tick the box to show it, and you can untick it any time by editing the listing.

We suggest keeping the conversation on the site until you’ve met. If someone turns out to be running a scam, we can see what was said when you report it.

Check your spam or junk folder and add Northern List to your contacts. Make sure message emails are turned on in Settings. Your messages are always in Messages either way.

Firearms, Free Stuff and Community posts can’t be bumped or featured. Payment processors don’t allow promoting firearm sales, and free stuff and community notices shouldn’t need paying for. Expired, sold and removed listings can’t be promoted either; renew or relist first.

Mark it sold as usual. The featured time that’s left isn’t refunded, since the placement already did its job. If something went wrong on our end, like a payment that went through without the promotion showing up, write to us and we’ll make it right.

The first 1,000 people to verify their email address on Northern List are founding members. You get your number (#1, #2 and so on) when you verify your email, not when you sign up, so accounts nobody finishes setting up don’t use up spots. Right now 999 spots are left.

Founding members get:

• A Founding member badge on their account.
• Their first listing featured free for 7 days (see the next question).

Your number, if you have one, is on your Invite page.

If you’re a founding member, or you joined through someone’s invite link, your first listing is featured free for 7 days. It starts the moment you publish: the listing shows in the Featured row above results in its category and in matching searches, with a Featured tag. There’s nothing to pay, and it shows in Billing as a $0 order.

• It’s once per account, for your first listing in a category that can be featured. Firearms, Free Stuff and Community can’t be.
• Listings with paid Featured are shown ahead of free ones.
• People who join through an invite link get it even after the founding member spots are gone.

The posting form tells you before you publish whether your listing gets it.

The seller passed an ID check run by Stripe, the company that handles our payments: a photo of a government-issued ID and a selfie that has to match it. It tells buyers there’s a real, identified person behind the listing. It doesn’t mean we’ve inspected the item, so the usual safety tips still apply.

Buyers can choose to see only listings from verified sellers in search.

1. Go to Get verified. The check is $2.99, once. It’s free on a Business account.
2. Take a photo of your ID and a selfie when Stripe asks. A phone camera works best.
3. Once Stripe confirms it, the Verified seller mark shows on your listings and your seller page.

If a check doesn’t pass (a blurry photo, glare on the ID), you can try again without paying again.

Stripe handles the photos and the selfie. We never receive them. We only keep whether you passed and Stripe’s reference number for the check.

Some dealers, landlords and shops show Verified business. That one we add by hand after we’ve confirmed the business is real. If you run one, write to [email protected].

We can take either badge away from an account that’s used for scams or breaks the rules.

Verified sellers get a personal invite link on their Invite page. When someone opens it and makes an account within 30 days, they count as your invite. Once they’ve:

• verified their email address, and
• posted a listing (any category except Firearms, Free Stuff and Community) that has stayed up 3 days without being taken down or reported,

you each get a free bump. A bump moves a listing back to the top of its category. We check once a day and email you both when it happens.

• Up to 10 rewarded invites per person.
• Accounts made from the same internet connection as yours don’t count. That’s how we stop people inviting themselves.
• Only new accounts count. Someone who already has an account can’t be invited.
• The person you invite also gets their first listing featured free for 7 days, even after the founding member spots are gone.

You can see everyone you’ve invited, and what each one is waiting on, on your Invite page.

Use Report on the listing page, pick the reason that fits (scam, prohibited item, wrong category, duplicate, already sold, offensive) and add any details that would help us check. The seller is not told who reported them.

We look at every report. If a listing breaks the rules, we take it down and tell the seller why. Accounts that keep breaking them, or that run scams, are banned.

• Stop replying and don’t send any more money or codes.
• Report the listing, or write to us with the seller’s name and the listing title, so we can stop them from reaching anyone else.
• If you lost money, call your bank right away and report it to your local police.
• You can also report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and to the Alaska Attorney General’s consumer protection unit.

Our safety page lists the scams we see most often.

When you sign up we email you a link. Opening it shows the address is really yours, and that’s needed before you can publish a listing or send a message. It keeps throwaway accounts from flooding sellers with scam messages. Until then you can still browse, save listings and write drafts.

The link works once and expires after 48 hours. No email? Check your spam folder, then use Send a new link at the top of My listings or in Settings.

Use Forgot password on the sign-in page. We’ll email you a link to set a new one. The link works for a limited time, so use it soon.

Go to Settings. Your phone number is only ever shown on listings where you choose to show it.

1. If you have a Business plan, cancel it under Billing first so you aren’t charged again.
2. Go to Settings and choose Delete account, then confirm.

Your listings, photos, messages, saved listings and saved searches are deleted. This can’t be undone. We keep a record of past payments because tax law requires it; see the privacy page for details. If you can’t sign in, email us from the address on the account and we’ll delete it for you.